title: Can routine commercial cord blood banking be scientifically and ethically justified?
abstract: Umbilical cord blood--the blood that remains in the placenta after birth--can be collected and stored frozen for years. A well-accepted use of cord blood is as an alternative to bone marrow as a source of hematopoietic stem cells for allogeneic transplantation to siblings or to unrelated recipients; women can donate cord blood for unrelated recipients to public banks. However, private banks are now open that offer expectant parents the option to pay a fee for the chance to store cord blood for possible future use by that same child (autologous transplantation).
authors.affiliation: Imperial College London, United Kingdom. nfisk@imperial.ac.uk
authors.forename: Nicholas M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Fisk
authors.forename: Irene A G
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Markwald
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Mironov
mesh_terms: D001771:Blood Banks / Q000191:economics*; D036101:Cord Blood Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000208:ethnology; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005312:Fetal Blood; D006801:Humans; D017149:Private Sector; D013048:Specimen Handling; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous
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