Ensuring the collection of large quantities of cord blood during placental delivery is always a challenge during the placental delivery process. The usual reasons why cord blood is not sufficiently collected vary from quick placental separation, thin cords, small veins, short cords or collapse/clotting in the veins after the cord has been cut. Contamination is also addressed by adequate cleaning of the cord before needle insertion (StemLife's contamination rates are <1%).
The usual process of cord blood collection involves dexterity of the doctor to insert the needle into the vein correctly, clamp and cut nearer the baby so that the umbilical cord is long and patience to allow the blood to fill the bag until the cord is "dry". Currently, StemLife averages a collection of 80-150 mls of cord blood which usually yields enough stem cells to treat a 40-60 Kg person. Our highest collection volume was 300 mls, a record in our book and probably many others as well!
I read with interest about a start-up company that has developed a prototype device to enhance the volume of cord blood that can be collected. The system does away with needles, but revolves around a clamp made of plastic and rubber that clips onto the cord. There is some sort of sealing mechanism connected to a sterilization chamber. The blood flows from the cord into the chamber and can be sucked out using a syringe. The syringe when full, is emptied and re-filled.
The CEO explains that this technique has the advantage of not requiring a needle, no bottleneck to slow flow and sterile. Their prototype tests indicate that they could collect three times the amount of cord blood in the same timeframe, whilst being easy to use.
Nothing comes cheap however and the company indicates that the retail price would be about USD 100 when it comes to market, which is a lot for a disposable item.
It is a marvellous idea though, and my questions to the CEO would be these:
1. Does it work on all types of umbilical cords?
- this method removes the doctor's judgement factor
2. What does one do if the vein collapses?
-do we have to cut the cord and use a new clip?
3. How is the blood prevented from clotting whilst in the syringe?
-pre-loading the anti-coagulant requires preparation, more manipulation and introduces a possibility of contamination or may be missed altogether?!
Our current StemLife's bag collection system avoids anti-coagulant loading and does not require extra manipulation to syringe and dispense into another container. I'd be interested to evaluate the system and also to find out if it can be modified to fit a bag instead.
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