Abstract

CORD BLOOD BANKING: A CONCISE REVIEW

*Dr RD Wadhwa, Dr Madhusudan Dey, Dr Nagraja Narayan, Dr AK Srivastava, Dr Anupam Kapur, Dr Raju Agarwal

Abstract

Umbilical cord blood is a readily available source of haemopoietic stem cells used with increasing frequency as an alternative to peripheral blood or bone marrow stem cells in treatment of the malignant and non malignant conditions mainly in children and also in adults. Umbilical cord blood is a rich sorce of haemopoietic stem cells with advantage of prompt availibility and low risk of graft vs host disease with limitation of insufficient stem cell dose to reliably treat larger children and adults. Public cord blood banks promote allogenic (related or unrelated) donation, analogous to the current collection of whole blood units. The number of cord blood units stored by private banks are large, for possible autologus use (approximately 1 in 2700 individuals). The umbilical cord blood collection should not alter routine practice for timing of cord clamping. This review will concentrate on procedure of collection, clinical use, advantages, limitation, storage of umbilical cord blood with Indian and Indian armed forces scenario of cord blood banking.

Keywords: Stem cell, Umbilical cord blood, Cord blood banking, Transplantation, Haematological malignancies.