Bertram Lubin, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics
University of California at San Francisco
Oakland Children's Hospital
revised March 22, 1999

Related Cord Blood Program for Patients with Thalassemia
Sickle Cell Anemia and Other Hematological Disorders

Children's Hospital of Oakland

 Children's Hospital Oakland has developed a Related Blood Program. We are offering cord blood collection to families who have a child with thalassemia, sickle cell anemia, leukemia, aplastic anemia or any other generic acquired disease that could potentially benefit from this research resource.

 Our program is the only Related Cord Blood Program currently supported by the NHLBI, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. During the first few months of the program, we have successfully collected more than 30 units from remote sites. Half of these were collected in families who have a child with thalassemia or sickle cell anemia.

 Cord blood transplantations have been used effectively for sickle cell anemia, thalassemia and other diseases which are treatable by bone marrow transplantation. We encourage physicians to offer these services to appropriate families in their practice.

 Our staff will carefully track and monitor each step in the remote site collection procedure. We will communicate directly with both the pregnant mother who is having cord blood collected and also with her physician or midwife. We will perform all necessary testing of maternal and cord blood, and will notify the physician and the patient's family of the results.

Specific Aims

Program Services

Laboratory Tests

Banking

 Cord blood units will be processed and cryopreserved following NHLBI-FDA reviewed protocols. Samples will be cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen and stored indefinitely in vapor phase.

 If a decision to transplant is made, we will ship the unit to the transplantation center. When the cord blood unit is used for transplantation, we will collect detailed information to evaluate transplantation outcome.

Who owns the cord blood?

 Cord blood units stored in our bank will be the property of the donor family.

What is the cost to the family?

 Patients will not be billed directly for any service provided by our Related Cord Blood Program. However, in selected cases, the hospital will attempt to recover third-party payment for these services.

Will all units be used for tranpslantation?

 A decision to collect and store cord blood does not mean a commitment to transplantation.

 Physicians are invited to refer any family to us whom they thing would benefit from this service.

 If you have any questions regarding the Related Cord Blood Program at Children's Hospital Oakland, please contact us at (510) 428-3388.
or see our web site.

 Bertram Lubin, M.D.
 Director of Medical Research
 Cord Blood Program
 Children's Hospital Oakland
  Research Institute

Children's Hospital Oakland Cord Blood Program

Directors

Cord Blood Program Staff

Stem Cell Laboratory

HLA Laboratory

For more information, please contact:

Children's Hospital Oakland
Research Institute
Cord Blood Program
(510) 428-3388

Supported by grant NHLBI 61877


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