Cord Blood Storage – An Overview Of Cord Blood Banking course of action
After cord blood collection, the blood is saved in bags or vials; it is taken to the cord blood bank by courier service. Once it reaches the bank, the sample is rendered a rare identification number. Thereafter, the doctors separate the stem cells from the blood and store them cryogenically (by halting them in liquid nitrogen). After that, when needed, the cord blood stem cells are unfreeze and utilized in either Allogeneic Procedures or Autologous Procedures.
During cord blood storage, each vial is labeled with cord blood number, name of the baby, date of birth, date of processing, and the contents. Then, it enters the first stage of cryopreservation. The vials are positioned in two cryo-tanks having different temperature and then are submerged into tanks containing liquid nitrogen. This step ensures the safety of stem cells. The series of falling temperature prevents the stem cells from undergoing a shock due to the intense negative temperature of – 32 degree Fahrenheit.
halting The Cord Blood- Liquid Nitrogen
To prevent ice crystals from forming over the stem cells, it is important to freeze the cells little by little. For this, a particular controlled-rate freezer is used. The handling processes and the freezers are designed to prevent “Transient Warming Events (TWEs). If there is a fluctuation in temperature, the cells will suffer an irreparable damage.
While halting living tissues, they are dipped in a solvent that safeguards the cells against ice crystal formation. Ice crystals can break the cell membranes. The most shared solvent used for cryopreservation is DiMethylSulOxide (DMSO), generally in 10 per cent solution. It serves as a protect around the cells.
Before placing the cells in liquid nitrogen tanks at a temperature of -196 degrees Celsius, the cells are exposed to a gradual halting course of action in a vapor tank, which contains liquid nitrogen up to 25 inches to make sure the temperature stays at the above mentioned temperature. All the equipment is placed in a highly supervised and secured facility.
Types Of Freezer
Some of the public cord blood edges with heavy budgets make use of “BioArchive” freezers. They are liquid nitrogen freezers using a proprietary, a robotic system controlled by a computer for cryopreservation and store a maximum of 3,626 bag units. The location in addition as the retrieval of each unit is computerized.
The purpose of robotic arm is to prevent “Transient Warming Events (TWEs), when the blood samples are kept or removed from the freezer. A majority of the public cord blood edges in America are making use of “dewars”. They are insulated tanks with lids. The chief disadvantage of these tanks is that the lid has to be lifted open every time you add or remove the samples. The temperatures are under continued evaluation and quite effective for prolonged storage.
Contents Of Freezer
The cord blood is stored in either vials or bags. When the freezer racks get loaded with cord blood containers, they should be positioned at an equal distance from each other to ensure the stability of temperature. The freezer has racks to keep up both bags and vials, but it is not advisable to mix the containers in one freezer. consequently, most of the edges concentrate on one kind of container. The cold nitrogen maintains the cryogenic temperature. Some cord blood edges prefer liquid nitrogen while others prefer cold nitrogen vapor.
There are certain pros and cons of both types of nitrogen.
Pros And Cons Of Liquid Nitrogen
Pros And Cons Of Vapor Nitrogen
As per theory, the stem cells should keep viable forever. However, the research on cord blood has started only since the 1970s; consequently, the maximum storage time and possible usage of the cells is however to be determined. However, cord blood stem cells, which have been saved for 14 years, have been utilized in transplants successfully. consequently, we can say that the stem cells have a good shelf life and can be safely used after many years for cord blood transplant, if stored properly. It is always better to be well informed about cord blood banking before going for it.