Valuable Cord Blood Sits Unused
High costs are keeping patients from using stem cells harvested from umbilical cords.
WIKIMEDIA, MAGNUS MANSKE
You’d think doctors and patients would be clamoring for cells so versatile they could help reboot a body suffering from everything from leukemia to diabetes. But a new report shows that an important source of these stem cells—discarded umbilical cords—is rarely utilized because of high costs and the risk of failure.
Stem cells drawn from the umbilical cord blood of newborn babies are sometimes used to treat medical conditions like lymphoma and sickle-cell anemia by replacing dysfunctional blood-producing cells in bone marrow. Yet less than 3 percent of cord blood collected in the United States is ever used, while the rest sit uselessly in blood banks, according to a September Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News report.
“The cost of the cord is prohibitively high,” explained immunologist Enal Razvi, author of the report and director of Select Biosciences, a biotechnology consulting agency. Each unit of cord blood costs between $35,000 and $40,000, and most adults require two units for a successful transplant.
Unlike bone marrow, the main alternative stem cell source, cells transplanted from cord blood carry little risk of graft-versus-host disease, a deadly condition in which the body rejects a transplant. Scientists believe this is because a baby’s immune system is closer to a blank slate, so their stem cells can integrate with the patient’s body more easily. But cord blood transplants also take longer to start working, requiring longer hospital stays and upping the bill. Insurance companies will generally pay a set amount for a stem cell transplant regardless of where the cells come from. The price tag on a cord blood transplant can run up to $300,000, which may not be fully covered.
There is also a risk that a transplant could fail entirely, leaving patients with a compromised immune system in addition to their original disease and medical bills.
“It’s like spreading a small amount of seeds in a big garden,” said Mitchell Horwitz, who teaches cell therapy at Duke University Medical Center. “Sometimes it just doesn’t take.”
These complications help explain the low usage of cord blood in the United States. Razvi found that public cord blood banks, which store donated frozen units for transplants as needed, have only a 1 percent to 3 percent turnover annually. Most of their inventory sits unused year after year. For example, at Community Blood Services in New Jersey, patients have only used 278 of its 13,000 cords since it opened in 1996, according to business development director Misty Marchioni.
High costs are keeping patients from using stem cells harvested from umbilical cords.
WIKIMEDIA, MAGNUS MANSKE
You’d think doctors and patients would be clamoring for cells so versatile they could help reboot a body suffering from everything from leukemia to diabetes. But a new report shows that an important source of these stem cells—discarded umbilical cords—is rarely utilized because of high costs and the risk of failure.
Stem cells drawn from the umbilical cord blood of newborn babies are sometimes used to treat medical conditions like lymphoma and sickle-cell anemia by replacing dysfunctional blood-producing cells in bone marrow. Yet less than 3 percent of cord blood collected in the United States is ever used, while the rest sit uselessly in blood banks, according to a September Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News report.
“The cost of the cord is prohibitively high,” explained immunologist Enal Razvi, author of the report and director of Select Biosciences, a biotechnology consulting agency. Each unit of cord blood costs between $35,000 and $40,000, and most adults require two units for a successful transplant.
Unlike bone marrow, the main alternative stem cell source, cells transplanted from cord blood carry little risk of graft-versus-host disease, a deadly condition in which the body rejects a transplant. Scientists believe this is because a baby’s immune system is closer to a blank slate, so their stem cells can integrate with the patient’s body more easily. But cord blood transplants also take longer to start working, requiring longer hospital stays and upping the bill. Insurance companies will generally pay a set amount for a stem cell transplant regardless of where the cells come from. The price tag on a cord blood transplant can run up to $300,000, which may not be fully covered.
There is also a risk that a transplant could fail entirely, leaving patients with a compromised immune system in addition to their original disease and medical bills.
“It’s like spreading a small amount of seeds in a big garden,” said Mitchell Horwitz, who teaches cell therapy at Duke University Medical Center. “Sometimes it just doesn’t take.”
These complications help explain the low usage of cord blood in the United States. Razvi found that public cord blood banks, which store donated frozen units for transplants as needed, have only a 1 percent to 3 percent turnover annually. Most of their inventory sits unused year after year. For example, at Community Blood Services in New Jersey, patients have only used 278 of its 13,000 cords since it opened in 1996, according to business development director Misty Marchioni.
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