UMBILICAL-CORD BLOOD COLLECTION AND SEPARATION FOR HEMATOPOIETIC PROGENITOR-CELL BANKING

Cord blood transplantation has been proven to be a suitable form of tr eatment for a variety of diseases in childhood and more recently in an increasing number of adult patients. Banks of cord blood cryopreserve d after HLA testing are required in order to provide various HLA types for unrelated transplantation. To optimize storage space cord blood n eeds to be stored as a separated product. Several early methods of cor d blood separation resulted in a significant loss of progenitor cells. We used a separation procedure where the donation was separated by ce ntrifugation into a buffy coat fraction, a red cell fraction, and a pl asma fraction. Twenty-five samples, (mean initial volume 81 mi) were a ssessed. Nucleated cells were recovered in the buffy coat fraction. Re coveries of nucleated cell count, total progenitors and CD34-positive cells in the buffy coat were 90%, 88% and 100%, respectively. The buff y fraction was tested for sterility by aerobic and anaerobic culture. Using this closed bag system, volume reduction was achieved while main taining sterility and retaining progenitor cells in a final mean buffy coat volume of 44 ml. Red cell and plasma fractions were available fo r ABO grouping, virology testing and cryopreservation. The results sho w that cord blood can be effectively volume-reduced using simple and r eadily available blood banking techniques.