The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) is committed to building a strong network and inventory of high-quality cord blood units available to any patient who needs a transplant. We work with expectant parents and public cord blood banks to increase the number and diversity of cord blood units available for patients. We are also committed to improving transplant results for patients. That is why we are conducting a research study on cord blood transplantation and patient outcomes.

Cord blood collection is a painless, non-invasive procedure that does not require general anesthesia. There is no potential risk to the baby. No potential maternal risk is associated with postplacental delivery. The infant donor is less likely to be infected with infectious pathogens such as cytomegalovirus, (CMV), and adenovirus.

Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) and peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (PBSCT) are procedures that restore stem cells that have been destroyed by high doses of chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. There are three types of transplants: In allogeneic transplants, patients receive stem cells from someone other than the patient or an identical twin. The patient's brother, sister, or parent may serve as the donor, or a person not related to the patient (an unrelated donor) may be used.

The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) maintains a database of registered potential donors, which usually becomes the only lifeline for patients requiring marrow transplants. 3000 patients search the Registry each day, with hopes of finding a compatible life-saving match. For more information on the NMDP Registry, please visit www.marrow.org

Identifying information is never exchanged between a cord blood donor and cord blood transplant recipient. The identity of the cord blood donor is kept confidential at the cord blood bank.

After your primary doctor refers you to an NMDP transplant center, your transplant center will work with the NMDP to find a donor or cord blood unit for you. Your transplant center will request more tests to see if a potential donor or cord blood unit is a suitable match. Sometimes more testing shows that potential donors or cord blood units do not match you at all the details or markers your center requires. Your transplant center will also look at other information.

You are not responsible for finding your own donor. If you need an unrelated donor or cord blood transplant, your primary doctor will refer you to an NMDP transplant center. Your transplant center will work with the NMDP to find a donor or cord blood unit for you. In general, we encourage patients and their immediate families to focus their energies on caring for the patient. The NMDP’s ongoing recruitment efforts add nearly 33,000 new donors to the Registry each month.

Umbilical cord blood was first used for transplantation in 1988, in France, for a patient with Fanconi's anemia; a disease-free sibling was the donor. Since that time, cord blood has been increasingly used as a substitute for bone marrow in thousands of successful transplants.

No. Identifying information is never exchanged between a cord blood donor and a cord blood transplant recipient.

National Marrow Donor Program is a federally supported organization that assists in locating unrelated donors.

In general, the procedure for obtaining bone marrow, which is also called "harvesting," is similar for all three types of BMTs (autologous, syngeneic, and allogeneic). The donor is given either general anesthesia, which puts the person to sleep during the procedure, or local anesthesia, which causes loss of feeling in the area of the body where the bone marrow will be removed.

It is the blood obtained from the umbilical cord at birth. The cord blood contains stem cells. Stem cells are the cells that make all of the other cells in your body, i.e., heart cells, neural cells, etc. These stem cells continue to reproduce throughout life unless they are destroyed by cancer or blood disease. If your stem cells are destroyed, you will die unless they are replaced by transplant.

The first human cord blood transplant was reported in the medical literature in 1972. The physicians who performed the transplant stated that fetal blood was successfully utilized in establishing a hematopoietic transplant in a leukemic patient. Subsequently, through international collaboration, a successful transplant was reported for Fanconi anemia in 1989. The cord blood of an HLA-identical female sibling was transplanted to a 5-year-old male with the disorder.

Live donor liver transplantation (LDLT) is a procedure that involves a living donor giving a portion of his or her liver to a family member or close friend in need of a liver transplant.

Donating bone marrow is a surgical procedure done under general or regional anesthesia in a hospital. While a donor receives anesthesia, doctors use needles to withdraw liquid marrow from the back of the pelvic bone. PBSC donation is a non-surgical procedure done in an outpatient clinic. PBSC donors receive daily injections of a drug called filgrastim for five days, to increase the number of blood-forming cells in the bloodstream.

Bone marrow is difficult to match between the donor and recipient because a perfect match is usually required. Cord blood immune cells, however, are less mature than those in bone marrow and can be successfully used even when there is only a half-match. Recipients experience less Graft versus Host Disease (GVHD) and, therefore, less complications and hospitalization.