Bigger is better: maternal and neonatal predictors of hematopoietic potential of umbilical cord blood units

Umbilical cord blood (CB) is a useful stem cell source for patients without matched family donors. CB banking is expensive, however, because only a sm all percentage of the cord units stored are used for transplantation. In th is study, we determined whether maternal factors, such as race, age, and sm oking status have an effect on laboratory parameters of hematopoietic poten tial, such as viability, cell counts, CD34(+) cell counts, and CFU-GM. We s tudied the effect of neonatal characteristics such as birth order, birth we ight, gestational age, and sex of the baby on the same laboratory parameter s. Race and maternal age had no effect on these laboratory parameters. In m ultivariate analysis, babies of longer gestational age had higher cell coun ts, but lower CD34(+) cell counts and CFU-GM. Bigger babies had higher cell counts, more CD34(+) cells, and more CFU-GM. Women with fewer previous liv e births also produced cord units with higher cell counts, CFU-GM, and CD34 (+) cell counts. Specifically, each 500 g increase in birth weight contribu ted to a 28% increase in CD34(+) cell counts, each week of gestation contri buted to a 9% decrease in CD34(+) cell counts, and each previous birth cont ributed to a 17% decrease in CD34(+) cell counts (all P < 0.05). These data may be used to select the optimal cord blood donors and allow CB banks eff icient resource allocation.