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
- To establish a research resource of related cord blood samples for use by transplant centers in the treatment of patients with hemoglobinopathies and other hematologic disorders.
- To develop materials and presentations that encourage cord blood collection among families who have children with thalassemia or sickle cell anemia.
- To evaluate the efficacy of local and remote site related cord blood collection.
- To evaluate the cost effectiveness and determine the outcome of transplant using units from our cord blood bank.
Program Services
- Informed consent and medical history forms.
- Educational materials to assist in cord blood collection, and educational of families to the potential value of collection.
- Collection kits with transportation supplies and instructions.
- Processing, cryopreservation and banking of the cord blood sample.
Case manager on call 24 hrs a day.
Laboratory Tests
- Infectious disease screening of maternal blood for transmissible disease, including CMV and HIV.
- Screening for other genetic diseases when suggested by the medical history.
- Molecular Class I and Class II HLA typing on maternal blood, cord blood and blood from the index child.
- Anaerobic and aerobic culture of the cord blood.
- Measurement of total volume, nucleated cell count, cell viability, CD34 cell number, BFU-E and CFU-GM.
- Molecular confirmation of hemoglobin genotype on cord blood.
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
- Bertram Lubin, M.D.
- Elliott Vichinsky, M.D.
Cord Blood Program Staff
- Marianna Eraklis, M.D.
- Renee Smith, C.N.M., M.P.H.
- Johnathan Vlahos
- Pilar Weiss
Stem Cell Laboratory
- Jeffrey Wolf, M.D.
- Deanne Hanes, Ph.D.
HLA Laboratory
- Beth Trachtenberg, Ph.D.
- Henry Erlich, Ph.D.
For more information, please contact:
Children's Hospital Oakland
Research Institute
Cord Blood Program
(510) 428-3388
Supported by grant NHLBI 61877
