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Blood Banking; Germ-free Closed System Developed for Clinical Banking of Umbilical Cord Blood
Health & Medicine Week
13 February 2006
2006 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com) -- A germ-free closed system was developed for clinical banking of umbilical cord blood.
According to a recently published study in the journal Blood Cells Molecules and Diseases, "Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is a source of hematopoietic progenitor cells and is used as an alternative to the bone marrow or peripheral blood for treatment of several onco-hematological diseases.
"Because of the limited number of CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells present in UCB units and of the elevated costs of cryopreservation, it is of paramount importance to select the UCB units that are clinically useful before storage and optimize banking efficiency by designing reliable procedures to process and freeze the selected units."
"Among the different parameters characterizing UCB," wrote V. Adami and colleagues at the University of Udine, "nucleated cell (NC) and CD34+ cell content provides useful criteria to select UCB units since clinical data documented that the infused cell load (both NC and CD34+ cells) plays an important role in the successful.
"By evaluating volume, CD34+ cell content, NC total amount, and NC density of 117 UCB units, we found a significant association between CD34+ cell content and NC density and total amount, indicating these parameters as useful to decide UCB clinical utility."
"Furthermore," continued Adami, "we set up a fast procedure to process UCB units for storage. A system for NC separation and volume reduction of UCB samples in a dedicated, germ-free, closed circuit was developed, where plasma and red blood cells (RBC) depletion was obtained by sedimentation in the presence of a 3.5% Polygeline solution."
The authors reported, "By this separation system, both RBC depletion and high NC and CD34+ cell recoveries were achieved in 60 min, and the yield was comparable to the one obtained by other separation methods."
"Since Polygeline has been clinically used as a plasma expander and no toxic effects on patients were reported," concluded researchers, "the protocol can be applied in the large-scale banking of UCB."
Adami and colleagues published their study in Blood Cells Molecules and Diseases (A closed system for the clinical banking of umbilical cord blood. Blood Cells Mol Dis, 2005;35(3):389-397).
Additional information can be obtained by contacting A. Degrassi, University of Udine, Consorzio Fenice, Pad Petracco, Ple SM Misericodria, I-33100 Udine, Italy.
The publisher of the journal Blood Cells Molecules and Diseases can be contacted at: Academic Press Inc. Elsevier Science, 525 B St., Ste. 1900, San Diego, CA 92101-4495, USA.
Keywords: Udine, Italy, Umbilical Cord Blood Banking, Sterile Closed System, Large Scale Blood Processing, Volume Reduction, Nucleated Cell, CD34+ Cell.
This article was prepared by Health & Medicine Week editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2006, Health & Medicine Week via NewsRx.com.
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