Israel Public Cord Blood Banks | Bedomaich Chayi

Israel Public Cord Blood Banks - Israel ranks fifth worldwide !

The 2009 report of the Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide organization (BMDW) (which provides relevant information of all public cord blood banks worldwide, including Israel) noted that Israel ranks fifth with regards to the number of available cord blood units (CBU) in proportion to the population size.

The BMDW report summarized its database of bone marrow units and UCB (cord blood) units worldwide including Israel. This database includes the tissue typing characteristics and other relevant information of all potential bone marrow donors as well as  the cord blood units that are stored in all local registries of public cord blood banks. When suitable family related donors are unavailable, doctors turn to this international database to search for appropriate donors.

At the end of 2009, the BMDW database included data concerning 13.5 million potential bone marrow donors and 405000 cord blood units in public banks in Israel and other countries. During the course of 2009, 43 banks and registries in 26 countries had added an additional 66,330 CBU to the global registry.

The BMDW report included a table that ranked the size of the public cord blood units registry of each country, and the ratio of this size to each country's population size. This ranking placed Israel as fifth largest in the world, with 10 CBU available units in public banks for every 10,000 residents. Taiwan (Nationalist China) came first in the ranking with 20.6 UCB units available for every 10,000 residents, and then come Belgium (12.9 units), Australia (10.9), Spain (10.4), Finland (5.8), and the United States in seventh place with 5.7 UCB units for every 10,000 residents. 

The report pointed out that at the end of 2009, Israel's public cord blood banks and registries had a total of 6,183 CBU recorded in the BMDW world registry. Of these, 4,680 were registered by the bone marrow and cord blood registry of the Hadassah Medical Center that includes the public cord blood banks of Bedomaich Chayi and the MDA (Magen David Adom). Another 1503 units were registered by the public cord blood bank of Sheba Medical Center (Tel Hashomer).

Among the new cord blood units that Israel added to the BMDW registry during 2009, about 42% were of unique tissue typing characteristics! This is compared to a mere 6% of unique phenotypes from bone marrow donors added by Israel to the global registry. This data indicates the vital importance of continuing every effort to increase the number of cord blood units in Israel's public cord blood banks.
 

Unique phenotypes found in the bone marrow donor registry of Israel.
In 2009 this increased by about 6%.

Unique phenotypes in the cord blood registry of Israel.
In 2009 this increased by about 42% !

Israel's population is comprised of different ethnic groups and has many Jewish and Arabic communities of varied ancestral origins. With the passing of time, the increasing intermarriage between different Jewish ethnisties has led to the constant arising of new genetic characteristics such as the tissue typing profile, so that nowadays, patients of mixed ancestry (with parents from different ancestral communities or ethnic origins) often find it almost impossible to find matches for bone marrow transplants while this situation is much better handeled by the public cord blood donors.

The importance of further increasing cord blood donations to public registries in Israel and abroad is self evident, among other things, due to the fact that cord blood transplants do not require full phenotype compliance. Due to this flexebility, a relatively small cord blood registry  of a few tens of thousands CBUcan provide solutions for large sectors of the population and in particular to patients with rare and unique phenotypes.

The facts and figures discussed here indicate that despite Israel's impressive ranking in ratio of cord blood units per population size, there is a clear and unambiguous need to dramatically expand the registry of its cord blood units in public banks in order to provide an appropriate compliance for every patient in Israel needing a bone marrow transplant. Israel's public cord blood banks are working with unprecedented energy to increase the donations of cord blood, and their efforts have been reinforced by Israel's implementation of the Cord Blood Law, and by the Israel government providing funding for its public cord blood banks as part of the national budget at the end of 2010.

Source of data: http://www.bmdw.org/uploads/media/BMDW2009.pdf