Cord blood banking - Yonsei university, Korea

초록

Background:In Korea, there are presently no existing government sponsored allogeneic human umbilical cord blood (CB) banks. However, four universiy attiliated hospitals are available for banking of sibling or unrelated cord blood for transplantation purposes. We intend to introduce banking meghods utilized at Yonsei University Cord Blood Bank as a means to represent the status of CB banking in Korea.Methods: The CB was obtained from 82 full term newborns from September, 1998 by puncturing the umbilical vein and collecting blood by gravity into blood collection bags. Each collection bag (Green Cross, Korea), with a 18G needle, accommodates a 200 mL capacity and contains 25 mL CPDA-1. The contents were inverted and lightly spun, after which the packed RBC was removed to avoid disturbing the buffy coat layer. Subsequently, the plasma was reoved after a second round of heavy centrifugation. The buffy coat concentrate was left in the bag, which volme was 20-30 mL. The CBs, cryopreserved using a programmed refrigerator (Custom BioGenics, USA) and stored in liquid nitrogen, are available on demand. All CB samples were typed for class HLA-A,B,DR by PCR-SSOP (low resolution). Results: The mean volume of CB was 91+/-25 mL. Toral nucleated cells, total MNCs and CD34+ cells in unseparated CB were 11.8+/-4.0 x 10^8, 4.1+/-1.0 x 10^8, and 1.8+/-1.4 x 10^6, respectively. After reducing the volme, the recovery of total nucleated cells was 65.1%, total MNC 78.7%, and total CD34+ cells 96.2%. The removal rate of red blood cells was 75.4%. Conclusion: In Korea, cord blood bank has been in existence since 1997 when sibling cord blood transplantation was tried. We believe the nunber of smaller scale cord blood banks among medical institutins is further expanded across the nation.