title: Transplant physicians' perceptions of cord blood transplantation in Korea: a questionnaire survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Although bone marrow (BM) or mobilized peripheral blood (PB) is frequently used as the source of hematopoietic stem cells, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) using cord blood (CB) is gradually gaining popularity in many countries. However, BM or PB is still preferred over CB in Korea. Therefore, we tried to assess the awareness of CB transplantation (CBT) among domestic HSCT physicians and develop strategies for boosting its utilization by administering questionnaires to some of these physicians.
  
  
  METHODS
  A direct questionnaire survey was conducted using the "Audience Response System" among 301 members who attended the annual meeting of the Korean Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. The data were analyzed for only 67 board certified physicians who were directly involved in HSCT activities.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The poor outcomes resulting from insufficient experience in CBT was designated by the physicians as the main reason for the low domestic implementation of HSCT using CB. Other reasons identified in the survey were distrust in the quality and management of domestic CB and the high cost of obtaining CB.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Increasing the use of donated CB would foremost require increasing the inventory of donated CB containing a sufficient cell number for CBT and securing structured quality control of the CB banks. In addition, it would be necessary to minimize CB supply costs and continue to provide academic data, including CBT guidelines, so that clinicians could perform CBT with more confidence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Hanyang University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Byeong Seon
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Ewha Woman's University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Yeung-Chul
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Mun
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Keimyung University Dongsan Medical Center, Daegu, Korea.
authors.forename: Ji Yoon
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Hanyang University Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Young-Ho
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Lee
keywords: Cord blood; Questionnaire; Utilization