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Choosing a Cord Blood Bank
The four “Must have” features you should look for in a cord blood bank:

1. Make certain that the bank you choose is Accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks for the specialized processing of stem cells.
General accreditation is not sufficient — the bank should be accredited for the specialized processing of

hematopoietic stem cells. That means that the bank had their laboratory and administrative procedures reviewed, inspected, and validated and were found compliant with the guidelines established by AABB for the specialized processing of stem cells. Don’t assume that a lab that handles sperm, ovum, or whole blood is qualified to process your stem cells.

2. Make sure that the laboratory and storage facility are owned by the bank.
Banks that contract the processing and storage to a third-party do not take responsibility for these critical steps, and you don’t know what will happen to your sample when the contract between the lab and the bank expires.

3. Ask to have the red blood cells removed from your cord blood before it’s cryopreserved.
Although it may be more expensive, there are significant advantages to removing the red blood cells from your baby’s cord blood sample. Transplant physicians prefer to use samples that have been red-cell depleted, which reduces the potential for A-B-O incompatibility. Red-cell depleted samples require less of a “cryo-protectant” called DMSO, which can cause serious side effects when the stem cells are used in transplant. The smaller the quantity of DMSO, the less problematic the side effects will be.

Don’t mistake “volume reduction” for “red-cell depletion”! It is possible to reduce some of the plasma and other cells in a sample to make it smaller, but this does not remove the majority of the red blood cells.

4. You’ll want a bank that has processed a significant number of cord blood samples and has provided samples that have been successfully used in transplant.
Ask both of these questions. The number of cord blood samples processed and stored speaks to experience, which is obviously an important factor when choosing a health care service provider. Would you prefer a surgeon who has performed 50 by-pass operations or 1,500? It is also very important for the stem cell samples that are processed and cryopreserved to be acceptable to a transplant physician. Each sample should be handled as if it were going to be used in this fashion. If your stem cell sample is ever required for transplant, it will be rigorously tested for bacterial contamination, viruses, cell viability, and cell count before it will be accepted for use. Good viability and high cell count are the results of proper processing. Verify that samples have been provided for transplant, and request the name of the specific transplant centers. Most importantly, ask if they have ever had a sample rejected for use because of loss of cell viability, contamination, or low cell count.

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