Pediatric Pathology and Molecular Medicine 20: 200 I Copyright © 2001 Taylor & Francis 1522-7952/01 $12.00 + .00 SIBLING DONOR CORD BLOOD BANKING FOR CHILDREN WITH SICKLE CELL DISEASE William Reed, MD, Mark Walters, MD, Elizabeth Trachtenberg, PhD, Renee Smith, CNM, MPH, and Bertram H Lubin, MD 0 Children's Hospital Oakland Research institute, Oakland, California, USA o Although henuuopoictic stem celt transplantation has curatioe potentialfor selected patients ioith sickle celt disease (SCD) , most patients who are eligiblefor transplantation do nul ltane a suitable donor. Curd blood (CB) from a sibling could provide an alternatiue stem cell source that, while not as well established as marrow, ma)' oller ceriain aduantages for selected families. These pOlenlial advantages include low risk 10 the infant donor, the possibility that mismatchedCB unitsfrom sibling donors miry be acceptablefor transplantatiou, prompt auailabiliiy of a stored CB unit for transplant, and decreased risk ofclinically significal/t graft-oersus-host disease. Whenfamilies with SCD (or othertransplant-treatable condition) conceive a sibling, I/O comprehensive research resource exists to assist thefamily in collecting the new infant's CB. fYith suppovtfrom the .National Heart Lung and Blood lnstltute, we are developing a noncommercial research-based CB Banking Prugram.ljJecijical(yfor medicallyindicatedsibling donations, In preliminar» experience, we have collected CB from 52 SCD families across 1.9 states. Of these, 2 CB units have thusfar been usedfor transplantation and ') others are I-1LA-identical. We conclude that a CB liaukfocnsing on sibling-donations may lie feasib!e, butfurther stud» is required to determine whether such a bank can collect CB units lif JIIj/icient quantity and quality to sutiport controlled trials of sibling CB transplantotion. Families with a .ljJecijic medical need, such as those already caringfor a child with SCD, should consider collecting sibling CB as part of comprehensive care if the olJI}()rtullil)' becomes available. Keywords cord blood, placental blood, related donor, sickle cell disease, stern cells, transplanta tion The discovery that cord blood (CB) contains sufficient hematopoietic stem cells for transplantation has created a number of opportunities for basic and clinical research. The first CB transplant was performed in France (or a child with Fanconi Anemia and involved a sibling donation [I]. Many subsequent CB transplants also involved sibling donations to pediatric recipients with nonmalignant hematologic diseases [2, 3]. However, no CB banking group has made sibling donations its chief programmatic aim, and controlled clinical Supported by a Research Resource Grant (I-U24-HL61877-01) from the Nntional Heart, Lung, and Blood lnstitutc and by a Pediatric Clinical Research Center Grant ("d-O I-RROI271-16) from the National lnstitutcs of Health. Address correspondence to \Villiam Reed, MD, Medical Director, Sibling Donor Cord Blood Program, Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, H7 52nd Street, Oakland , CA 94609, USA. E-mail: wlllrcccl@lmi.nct 167