Doctors Hospital at Renaissance Announces Partnership with Texas Cord Blood Bank

(June 23, 2008) 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 Doctors Hospital at Renaissance. Doctors Hospital at Renaissance is the eighth hospital in Texas, and the third one in the Rio Grande Valley region, to collect cord blood for the Texas Cord Blood Bank.

“The Women’s Hospital at Renaissance feels that this is a necessary step in the healing process of the future,” said Marissa Castañeda, Chief Operations Officer. “In establishing this partnership, we are able to provide our community with an opportunity to support a leading edge solution to combating a number of diseases. In putting our patients first, we believe this not only allows them to participate in an important program but help ensure the best care for all those in need.”

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, such as lymphoma and leukemias; disorders of the blood-making system, such as sickle-cell anemia; severe immune-system disorders, neurological problems and genetic defects affect the blood-making system.

“This is an important time in the cord blood bank’s history, as we expand opportunities throughout the state” said Norman D. Kalmin, MD, South Texas Blood & Tissue Center president/CEO and medical director. “Doctors Hospital is an important partner as we look for opportunities to grow the program. We have secured the participation of eight hospitals in less than three years, which has allowed us to already begin supplying this life-saving resource to people of all ages. It’s because of partnerships such as this with Doctors Hospital that make it possible to make a difference in the health of our children and our families.”

The Texas Cord Blood Bank now has eight participating hospitals, including Southeast Baptist Hospital, 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, Medical City-Dallas Hospital and Christus Santa Rosa Hospital in New Braunfels.

Texas, as a whole, is a premier location for a public cord blood bank due to its rich ethnic diversity. “This partnership between the Texas Cord Blood Bank and Doctors Hospital at Renaissance is an important step in establishing an ethnically diverse supply of cord blood stem cells that will help increase patients' chances of receiving successful transfusions” said Texas State Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa.   “I am proud that our South Texas doctors and the Texas Cord Blood Bank, through its funding by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, are helping families participate in this life-saving program." 

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.  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. 

###