Cord blood banking – is it worth its price?

During the birth of a child, the umbilical cord blood (UCB) can be collected and if stored properly, it may be used in the future in case of disease of the child or siblings. Nowadays, UCB is considered as a great source of hematopoietic stem cells that possesses certain advantages over bone marrow or peripheral blood such as simple and safe way of its collection and much better regenerative capability. However, the more private cord blood banks occur, the less objective information is provided to parents, who need to make an important decision associated with significant cost. Therefore, comprehensive and reliable data is needed to present both sides of the coin.

The UCB banking is becoming more and more popular. Since the first successful cord blood transplantation in 1988 in a patient who suffered from Fanconi anemia, approximately 30,000 allogeneic UCB transplantations have been performed worldwide to treat numerous blood diseases as well as genetic and metabolic disorders or even some forms of cancer. Currently, the number of active cord blood banks is said to be 485. Comparing this to 2005, when only 23 of them existed, there is a significant 21-fold increase in the size of the UCB industry in less than ten years. In 2012, the global market associated with UCB banking was valued at $12.4 Billion and is expected to rise substantially.

In general, two types of UCB banks can be distinguished. These are private (or family) and public. The latter ones are available for all donors and get UCB with a permission of parents. In such a way, the cord blood units become a property of the public bank, which can be stored for later usage. The samples are registered and screened in terms of their volume, cell number and infectious disease status. In contrast, private banks receive UCB and keep it for families for their individual use. It means, that a child (together with parents) is the owner of the sample. The whole procedure of UCB collection, processing and early storage is associated with costs up to $2,500 and additional annual maintenance fee of about $200-400 concerning USA. Regarding Europe, in the United Kingdom the overall cost of collection, processing and storage for 25 years is between £1,500 to £2,000.

Cord blood is present in the umbilical cord and placenta, hence it is quiet easy to collect. The  UCB is a source of haematopoietic stem cells that can give rise to all blood cell types involving red cells, white cells and platelets. What is more, there are reports claiming that some other types of stem cells can be found in cord blood. There are several advantages of UCB-derived stem cells versus bone marrow-derived stem cells including ease and lower cost of collection, minimal risk for mother and child, shorter time of processing, less rejections and less need for stringent antigen typing.

In spite of all benefits associated with usage of UCB stem cells, the procedure has also some limitations. These are small volume of blood unit, lack of additional cell doses, limited benefit of autologous donation due to hereditary disorders and some storage issues such as quality control and unknown time during which stem cells preserve their proper characteristics. The other thing is quiet narrow area in which UCB stem cells can be applied. As prof. dr hab. Maciej Kurpisz from the Department of Reproductive Biology and Stem Cells of Institute of Human Genetics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poznan says:

“UCB-derived cells are currently used in a very small extent - approximately 1% of all stored samples. It is due to the fact that these cells can be almost solely used for treating children with proliferative disorders such as Myeloproliferative neoplasms or Lymphoproliferative disorders , which are rather not very common. The world’s UCB reserves are big enough, therefore,  further banking seems to be pointless. Nowadays, in Poland and other Central European countries, only commercial companies advertise this kind of services”

The advances in the field of medicine are becoming more and more available for wider groups of people. However, in order to understand pros and cons of such procedure as UCB banking, some knowledge associated with the topic is indispensable. As UCB banking became a commercial service, people need to be aware that not all information presented by private cord blood banks is objective. Such important decision as keeping UCB of a child, should be made individually with the advice of the professional physicians with proper experience and knowledge.

Sources:

https://www.bharatbook.com/healthcare-market-research-reports-329937/complete-2012-13-us-cord-blood-banking-industry-report.html

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cord-blood-banking-services-market-is-expected-to-reach-usd-152-billion-globally-in-2019-transparency-market-research-235982241.html

http://www.acog.org/-/media/Committee%20Opinions/Committee%20on%20Obstetric%20Practice/co399.pdf?dmc=1&ts=20141007T0410160320

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170109/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3193706/

Maciej Smolarz