PROPOSED POLICIES AND PROCEDURES FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A CORD-BLOOD BANK

To carry out cord blood transplants from allogeneic unrelated donors, cord blood stem cell banks must be established, This report proposed t he policies and procedures that can be used to establish cord blood ba nks, The areas covered include donor consent and suitability criteria; infectious and genetic disease testing; collection, processing, and p reservation of the cord blood; retention of specimens for special test ing; confidentiality; documentation and record keeping; establishment of a quality control program; and related regulatory issues, There are no technologic impediments to establishing cord blood banks, Agreemen t on some standard policies and procedures would facilitate exchange o f cord blood stem cells among transplant centers and should increase t he number of transplants that can be done.