Third area hospital joins Texas Cord Blood Bank

McKenna Memorial Hospital in New Braunfels
has begun accepting donations.

SAN ANTONIO – The Texas Cord Blood Bank (TCBB), a publicly and privately funded non-profit program established to create a public supply of umbilical cord blood, announced that it has begun collecting the life-saving resource from McKenna Memorial Hospital in New Braunfels, Texas. Collections began October 1 with 30 units having been banked as of the end of October.

“The Texas Cord Blood Bank has developed a most impressive donor program and I am very pleased that McKenna Memorial Hospital is a part of it,” said Pam Voigt, RN, Cord Blood Bank Coordinator. “Our physicians are very supportive of the program and we appreciate their willingness to take the extra time to do the collection.”

According to hospital officials, nearly a dozen OB/GYN and primary care physicians are participating in promoting or collecting cord blood at McKenna so far. TCBB, a division of the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center, is the state’s first public bank for umbilical cord blood.  Although usually discarded after the birth of a healthy baby, umbilical cord blood is rich in blood-making cells that can be used, like bone-marrow transplants, to treat a number of potentially fatal diseases.  These include cancers, such as lymphoma and leukemias; disorders of the blood-making system, such as sickle-cell anemia; severe immune-system disorders and genetic defects affecting the blood-making system.

“Many of our patients have agreed to be screened as donors once they realize the difference it could make in the lives of others,” Voigt said.

“McKenna offers great potential to supply a large number of diverse cord blood units to the bank,” said Norman D. Kalmin, MD, President/CEO and Medical Director of the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center. “The hospital delivered more than 1,000 babies in 2006, and the community has embraced the program.”

Texas, as a whole, is a premier location for a public cord blood bank due to its rich ethnic diversity. Because genetic makeup affects the compatibility between the blood of donors and recipients, it is important to establish an ethnically diverse supply of cord blood in order to increase the likelihood of finding a suitable transfusion for all patients in need. There is no risk involved for donors of umbilical cord blood, which has been found to work at least as well as bone marrow from unrelated donors.

“The New Braunfels community has been extremely supportive of our blood and tissue programs,” Kalmin added, “We opened a blood collection facility there last year, and this is a great extension of the partnership we have already established in the community.”

The Texas Cord Blood Bank now has six participating hospitals, including Methodist and North Central Baptist hospitals in San Antonio, Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen and Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville in the Rio Grande Valley and Medical City-Dallas hospital.

###