Donation and transplantation of cord blood
The cord blood transplantation offers, like the bone marrow transplantation, an additional chance of cure for patients with serious hematological diseases. The Agence de la biomédecine, through the “French Network of Placental Blood” (Réseau Français de Sang Placentaire - RFSP), supervises the institutions that collect and store the cord blood units.
The cord blood is obtained from the placenta by collection from the umbilical cord immediately after birth. This procurement procedure is painless and safe, without any danger neither for the mother nor for the newborn.
After collection, the cord blood unit is tested and, if compliant with required quality standards, becomes a graft, source of hematopoietic stem cells. Each cord blood unit is cryopreserved and stored in a duly authorized establishment (called a cord blood bank).
EUROCORD REGISTRY
Eurocord has been operating on behalf of the EBMT as a registry of cord blood recipients since 1995, collecting and validating clinical data of patients transplanted with Netcord and European cord blood units, in EBMT transplant centres, and other transplant centres affiliated to Eurocord.
On July, 2010, Eurocord split into two different administrative entities :
The Eurocord Registry transferred to the Agence de la biomédecine, Paris, France, a French public administrative institution working under the responsibility of the French Ministry of Health, competent in organ, tissues and cells donation and transplantation and the Eurocord-Studies, located in Saint Louis Hospital, Paris.
The main mission of the Eurocord Registry is to provide validated clinical outcome data of cord blood recipients to the cord blood banks/registries with the objective to control the quality of their cord blood units transplanted in EBMT centres and other affiliated centres. The Eurocord registry collaborates with the Eurocord-Studies group which is directly linked to the Cord blood subcommittee of EBMT, and is in charge of clinical research using the Eurocord Registry database.
The Eurocord registry has signed agreements with cord blood banks/registries which wish to dispose of the clinical outcome data of patients who were transplanted with cord blood units shipped from the banks for purposes of accreditation by national and international organizations (FACT-NETCORD).
The Eurocord registry commitments are :
- To transmit to the cord blood banks, every 6 months, the raw clinical outcomes data of the cord blood transplantations performed with cord blood units shipped from the banks during the reference period, as well as with all the units previously shipped by the banks and recorded in the Eurocord registry
- To edit the annual activity report of the cord blood banks which contains the demographic study of the cord blood units released by the banks and the statistical analysis of the main cord blood transplantations outcomes (engraftment, acute GvHD, relapse, survival) of all the patients transplanted with units shipped by the banks since the beginning of their activity.
The Cord Blood Banks/Registry interested in the Eurocord registry services should contact the head of the registry :
IONESCU Irina, MD
Eurocord Registry
Hematopoietic Stem Cell Department
Agence de la biomédecine
Phone : +33 1 55 93 64 35 (Mo, Thu), +33 3 20 95 98 93 (Tue, Fri)
Fax : +33 1 55 93 65 13
Email : irina.ionescu@biomedecine.fr
THE ROLE OF THE AGENCE DE LA BIOMEDECINE
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