Background: Assessment of the umbilical cord blood (UCB) unit is a crucial issue in the hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. A cord blood bank (CBB) must ensure that the final product of transplantation is represented accurately from quality control (QC) products of the UCB unit. The use of a tube segment attached to the UCB unit as well as a separate 1.8 mL cryovial containing an identical aliquot of the cryopreserved UCB unit product was exposed to the same postprocessing freezing and storage conditions as the UCB unit. Eventually, the utility of the attached segment and the 1.8 mL cryovial was evaluated as valid QC tools in order the final UCB unit graft to be validated.

The data presented suggest that cryopreservation of CB units in a mechanical freezer at -150°C may represent an alternative cryostorage condition for CB cryopreservation.

This study was designed to maximize the recovery of the desirable cell populations contained in the cord blood (CB) freezing bag, in order to optimize donor selection for adolescents and adults. To evaluate this hypothesis, high volume CB units (CBUs) were categorized into three volume collection groups (120-139, 140-159 and >or=160 ml) and were randomly split before volume reduction into two half low volume CBUs; (a) and (b). Using the SEPAX Cell Processing System, all CBUs were standardized to 26 ml. In 128 high volume split CBUs, the WBC, mononuclear cell and CD34+ cell recoveries were significantly higher (P