Allogeneic unrelated cord blood banking worldwide: an update

Today Cord Blood (CB) Transplants are accepted as a therapeutic resource for the treatment of a variety of disorders, comparing in some cases, with transplants performed with other sources of progenitors. Unrelated Cord Blood Banks (CBBs) have significantly contributed to this improvement by the improvement on the knowledge of the CB biology and technical developments. Today, there are more than 100 active Cord Blood Banks (CBB), with an inventory of more than 400,000 units, which have generated more than 10000 cord blood transplants all around the world. Access to the world-wide CB inventory, as well as the hemopoietic progenitors inventory from adult donors, is a rather complex task which is continuously subject to improvements and consolidations. The growing numbers of CBBs and the search for efficiency has driven them to constitute or adapt consolidated data bases and access systems, and to develop a number of registries or networks to improved the access to inventories. The purpose of the present article is to provide a general overview on the number of CB units stored around the word, the quality accreditation systems and how the CB networks and their national and international inventories and registries are organized in order to support the, every time more efficient search for suitable CB units for patients lacking family donors.