title: Cord blood banking and quality issues.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Food and Drug Administration guidelines are designed to assure the quality and safety of the cord blood product used for transplantation. It is valuable to determine whether the actions called for in these guidelines are effective.
  
  
  METHODS
  We applied our cell therapy quality system to all cord blood units shipped into our cellular therapy laboratory for transplant at the University of Minnesota between 2011 and 2013. The quality issues were categorized as likely, potentially, or unlikely to have a clinical impact.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 249 units of umbilical cord blood (UCB) were received from 16 cord blood banks. A total of 159 units (64%) had a total of 245 issues. Of these, 117 (48%) pertained to medical history, 120 (49%) to quality control, and eight (3%) to labeling and documentation. Units with quality issues were no more likely to fail to engraft, and no specific kind of quality issue was associated with failure to engraft. Compared to a similar study 10 years ago, there was a decrease in the number of issues per unit.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The cost of collecting, testing, processing, and storing UCB is very high. However, there may be activities that do not contribute to the quality or safety of the cord blood. The guidelines could be reviewed to determine their value based on years of experience.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: McKenna
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McCullough
mesh_terms: D001771:Blood Banks / Q000592:standards*; D036101:Cord Blood Stem Cell Transplantation; D005312:Fetal Blood; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D011356:Product Labeling; D011786:Quality Control; D014481:United States