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Top 10 Essentials for Cord Blood Banking

Board of Directors adopts policy on banking specifications and procedures

The CBA Board of Directors has adopted as official policy Top 10 Essential Requirements for Cord Blood Banking. The policy is a statement of procedures and specifications that always should be met.

The genesis of the 10 essentials was a report earlier this year in which CBA President Joanne Kurtzberg told the directors about her clinical experience for nearly a decade treating children with cerebral palsy, autism and other brain injuries with infusions of autologous and sibling cord blood units. “I have experienced many situations in which a family-banked unit could not be used because it lacked a critical piece of data or because it was not stored or shipped properly,” she said.

A draft essential requirements for cord blood banking was prepared and circulated to CBA members for review and comment. Several modifications of the draft were made based on member comments, and the policy has been approved.

When approving the policy, the Board cautioned that the “10 essentials” are high-level requirements that always should be followed when banking cord blood, but governmental regulations and voluntary accreditation have additional requirements. The directors hope that the policy is another step toward harmonization of banking standards and practices around the world.


Top 10 Essential Requirements

  1. Collection into a validated sterile container with anticoagulant
  2. Enumeration of a total nucleated cell count prior to cryopreservation
  3. Measurement of total nucleated cell or CD34 cell viability prior to cryopreservation
  4. ABO, Rh typing
  5. Testing for sterility
         (If positive, identification of the organisms and antibiotic sensitivities)
  6. Donor screening tests on the maternal donor, including but not limited to:
         Hepatitis B surface antigen
         Hepatitis B NAT or PCR
         Hepatitis C antibody
         Hepatitis C NAT or PCR
         HIV 1 and 2 +/- O antibody and PCR
         Syphilis antibody
         CMV antibody
  7. Validated cryopreservation procedure, storing product in a cryobag or other similarly validated container with a minimum of two attached segments
  8. Labeling and chain of custody
  9. Storage in the vapor or liquid phase of liquid nitrogen
  10. Shipment to the treatment center in a validated dry shipper