Umbilical Cord Blood Program at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC Provides One-Year Update
PITTSBURGH, October 15, 2008 — To date, nearly 800 families have made arrangements to donate lifesaving cells through the Dan Berger Cord Blood Program at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC. Launched a year ago through a unique public-private partnership, the program gives parents an opportunity to preserve umbilical cord blood for possible future health care needs or donate their child’s cord blood for the public good.
Cord blood is collected from the umbilical cord immediately after a baby’s birth, before the placenta has been delivered. This moment of delivery is the only opportunity to harvest a newborn’s stem cells. Since blood is taken from the cord only after it has been clamped and cut, there is no risk to the baby. Cord blood also can be collected safely regardless of whether a woman delivers vaginally or by Cesarean section.
“Magee has seen a remarkable increase in public interest and donation to the public banks,” said Mary Wiegel, Dan Berger Cord Blood Program coordinator. “We also are seeing a healthy number of units being stored with our private-banking partners.”
For many years, umbilical cords and placental tissue collected after childbirth were – and still are – routinely discarded as medical waste. Like bone marrow, however, umbilical cord blood is rich in stem cells. Stem cells from umbilical cord blood have been used to treat more than 50 diseases, including numerous cancers, inherited metabolic disorders and immune deficiencies, and account for more than 8,000 transplants worldwide. Since 2007, this cutting-edge approach has been available to people in the Pittsburgh area.
Established in partnership with the UPMC Health Plan, Highmark Corp., the Institute for Transfusion Medicine (the parent company of Pittsburgh’s Central Blood Bank), and private banks Cord Blood Registry, CorCell and ViaCord, Magee’s program is named for the late Dan Berger, a Pittsburgh attorney who underwent a successful stem cell transplant to overcome cancer, but then tragically died of a heart attack in 2006.
“This public-private collaborative for cord blood preservation is being studied as a model by other health care institutions across the state and nation,” said Dennis English, M.D., vice president for medical affairs at Magee, noting that the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed legislation in June encouraging cord blood collection at hospitals in the Commonwealth.
Public and private banks nationwide store cord blood. Public banks store cord blood for the benefit of anyone who may need the cells, and usually coordinate matching cord blood to patients through the National Marrow Donor Program. Other banks, such as the Cord Blood Registry, CorCell and ViaCord are for-profit organizations that charge fees to store cord blood for the exclusive use of the donor.
Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC is one of only a handful of not-for-profit hospitals in the United States dedicated to the care of women and infants. Magee serves as the teaching facility for obstetrics, gynecology, gynecological oncology and neonatology for students enrolled in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Nursing, and for allied health professions. Members of Magee’s medical staff hold academic appointments at the University of Pittsburgh and are actively involved in education and research, as well as patient care.