Cord Blood Banking and Transplantation in China: A Ten Years Experience of a Single Public Bank

Background: Umbilical cord blood (UCB) has successfully used for transplantation to treat hematologic malignancies and genetic diseases. Herein, we describe the experience generated in a single public UCB bank at Zhejiang Province in China. Methods: Good manufacturing practice and standard operating procedures were used to address donor selection as well as UCB collection, processing, and cryopreservation. Total nucleated cells (TNCs), cellular viability, CD34+ cells, and colonyforming units were determined, and infectious diseases screening test, sterility test, and HLA typing for UCB units were done. Results: Only 18.51% of all collected UCB units met storage criteria, and 7,056 UCB units were cryopreserved in 10 years. The volume of UCB units was 95.0 +/- 22.0 ml. The number of TNCs before and after processing was 13.32 +/- 3.63 x 10(8) and 10.63 +/- 2.80 x 10(8), respectively, and the recovery rate was 80.71 11.26%. 0.4344 +/- 0.1874% of the TNCs were CD34+ cells. The CFU-GM was 32.1 +/- 28.0 colonies per 1 x 10(5) nucleated cells. Based mainly on HLA and nucleated cell content, 26 UCB units were released for transplantation. Conclusions A public UCB bank was successfully established in China; collection and processing of UCB units should be optimized in order to gain maximum volume and cell count.