title: Pre-birth selection of umbilical cord blood donors.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  . The fact that only a small percentage of cord blood units (CBU) stored are actually used for transplantation contributes to raising the already high costs of their processing and cryopreservation. The identification of predictors allowing the early identification of suitable CBU would allow a reduction of costs for the collection, storage and characterisation of CBU with insufficient volume or cell numbers. In our bank we have adopted a cut-off value for using CBU of 8 x 10(8) nucleated cells and a volume >or= 60 mL.
  
  
  METHODS
  In 365 banked CBU, we evaluated the correlation between neonatal/gestational parameters and laboratory data used to assess their quality.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Biparietal diameter (BPD) and abdominal circumference were significantly and positively correlated with CBU volume (r(2)=0.12, p=0.0011 and r(2)=0.092, p=0.0063, respectively). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that both parameters can be used to identify CBU with insufficient volume (BPD: area under the curve 0.69, 95% CI=0.57-0.82, p=0.004; abdominal circumference: area under the curve 0.67, 95% CI=0.54-0.79, p<0.01). BPD and head circumference, but not abdominal circumference or femoral length, were positively correlated with white blood cell (WBC) count (r(2)=0.215, p=0.031, and r(2)=0.299, p=0.015, respectively). Abdominal circumference, but not BPD, head circumference or femoral length, was statistically significantly correlated with the number of CD34(+) cells in the CBU. Weight at birth and placental weight were positively correlated with WBC count, blood volume, CD34(+) cell count, total colony-forming units and burst-forming units.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  . Pre-birth assessment of BPD might allow the selection of donors who would yield CBU of sufficient volume and WBC count and avoid the costs of collecting, transferring, storing and analysing CBU with a high probability of resulting unsuitable for transplantation.
authors.affiliation: Banca Cellule e Tessuti, UO Immunoematologia, Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Pisana, Italy.
authors.forename: Patrizia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Urciuoli
authors.forename: Simona
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Passeri
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ceccarelli
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Luchetti
authors.forename: Aldo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Paolicchi
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lapi
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Nocchi
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lamanna
authors.forename: Mariacarla
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iorio
authors.forename: Renato
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vanacore
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mazzoni
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Scatena
mesh_terms: D001771:Blood Banks; D001782:Blood Donors; D036101:Cord Blood Stem Cell Transplantation; D046148:Donor Selection / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005312:Fetal Blood; D006801:Humans; D011247:Pregnancy