Cord Blood Program Grows

The growing Cord Blood Program at Northwest Tissue Services recently tripled its inventory to make it one of the larger community banks in the country.

This latest rapid expansion was the result of acquiring 3,800 transplantable cord blood units banked by the American Red Cross in Portland.

Last year, when the Red Cross discontinued its cord blood banking programs nationwide to refocus on its primary mission, the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) stepped in to purchase the cord blood units, which already had been reviewed, tested, and available on the NMDP registry.

A Good Match
NMDP turned to the Tissue Services to receive and manage the Portland cord blood inventory. The request was natural for both parties.

“The Tissue Services was selected, due not only to proximity, but for its established quality practice procedures and controls, and because of the respect we’ve earned with NMDP,” says Doug Mora, the Tissue Services’s Cord Blood Program coordinator.

In 2004, the Tissue Services began listing cord blood units on the registry, and of the 28 used in transplants, 25 have come from matches found through the NMDP, with most used for young leukemia patients, including some in Argentina, Brazil, France and Spain.

“That fact alone underscores the strength and value of the partnership between the Tissue Services and NMDP,” notes Mora. “Our close relationship has proven that we can be trusted to manage an inventory of this size.”

Moving up Physically moving the cord blood inventory from Portland to Seattle was a challenge, according to Greta Taber, the Tissue Center’s cord blood laboratory lead. “This was a huge effort by staff, Byrne Specialty Gases and the entire Tissue Services QA team. Over a period of two days in April, it took four trucks to move the files, equipment, three liquid nitrogen freezers, three sample storage freezers and one freezer-fridge,” she explained.

The Tissue Services QA team moved quickly to assure that the units had made the trip without compromise and that all records were intact and available. The inventory was reactivated on the registry in less than two weeks. The efficiency of the move limited the time the units were unavailable for transplant. “This move was expected to have kept the units off the transplant list for up to a month,” said Taber.

Three units from the Red Cross inventory already have been sent for transplant at the time RESOURCE went to press.

“We’re now in a position to have a large impact on the well-being of many more patients,” said Mora.