Donations to Texas Stem Cell Bank are Too Low
The state legislature established the Texas Cord Blood Bank in San Antonio((in 2001)) to collect stem cells from umbilical cord blood to use in treatments. However, donations to the center are too low.
Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen and in Brownsville, Medical City in Dallas and Methodist Hospital in San Antonio are the only four hospitals that are a part of the network sending adult stem cells to the center. More clinics are needed.
At the end of the year, the bank’s inventory of cord blood, now just fewer than 1,000 units, will go online as a searchable database through the National Marrow Donor Program. But because there isn’t enough cord blood to go around, thousands of patients may die who would otherwise get a transplant.
The Texas Cord Blood Bank wants to increase the number of facilities involved in banking. To build an adequate supply of cord blood for transplantations, the Institute of Medicine has said the nation needs about 100,000 donations, besides the usable 50,000 cord blood donations already in stock at public cord blood banks around the country.
