Publication

Abstract : Since, the first successful transplantation of umbilical cord blood in 1988, marking 25th anniversary of the first umbilical cord blood transplantation performed in France, in a child with Fanconi Anemia, umbilical cord blood transplantation is considered as an alternative to hematopoietic stem cell source for patients with hematologic diseases. With over 600,000 umbilical cord blood units stored for transplantation worldwide and over 30,000 umbilical cord blood transplantation performed, the patient pool in India treated with umbilical cord blood transplant using related or unrelated is merely only 32. In a country, where private cord blood banking has a significant attention and considering the large number of patients born with blood related disorders, these transplantations are comparatively few. In this paper, we review the need of setting up of a public cord blood bank across the country, lack of sufficient umbilical cord blood repository, therapeutic challenges associated with umbilical cord blood with an increase in hematological diseases incidence in India.