Texas Cord Blood Bank Announces Partnership with University Hospital in San Antonio

Major public hospital joins life-saving cord blood program

SAN ANTONIO (Jan. 19, 2010) – 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 University Hospital in San Antonio. 

University Hospital, part of University Health System and owned by the taxpayers of Bexar County, became the 13th hospital in Texas to join the cord blood program, when collections began on January 19.

“Our partnership with the Texas Cord Blood Bank program fits perfectly with our mission to provide high-quality care, advance medical research, and offer the very latest in advanced treatment options for complex medical and surgical problems,” said University Health System President/CEO George B. Hernández, Jr.  “Umbilical cord blood has the potential to save many lives and University Hospital is proud to be a part of this program.”

“It is thrilling for Bexar County’s public hospital system to get involved with this cutting-edge public health program that is already making a difference in the health of people in our region and throughout the country,” said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff.  “This partnership between University Hospital and the Texas Cord Blood Bank further advances the strength of the thriving healthcare and bioscience sector that plays an increasingly important role in this community.”

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 leukemia; disorders of the blood-making system, such as sickle-cell anemia; severe immune-system disorders and genetic defects affecting the blood-making system.

“University is an extremely important partner as we continue to build the Texas Cord Blood Bank into a premier resource for umbilical cord blood stem cells,” said Mary Beth Fisk, vice president of South Texas Blood & Tissue Center. “Dr. John Boldt and Dr. Ely Xenakis, both members of the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center Foundation, were instrumental in developing this partnership, and it is through the hard work and dedication of champions throughout our community and medical establishment that we are able to grow.”

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 Texas Cord Blood Bank announced in October that it had matched 57 patients with cord blood donations since the bank began listings its donations with the Be The Match Registry National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) in 2006. In addition to the cord blood matches, more than 5,800 units of cord blood have been banked in the program and are ready when needed for transplant. Cord blood units have been provided to a range of patients from infancy to 64-years-old, suffering from leukemia, lymphoma and other diseases treated with cord blood transplants.

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About the Texas Cord Blood Bank
Specially approved by the Texas legislature and the first in the State, the Texas Cord Blood Bank – a division of the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center – is a source of ethnically diverse, life-saving umbilical cord blood. With more than 30,000 people currently waiting for a transplant to be found, donor families across Texas have turned the birth of one child – their child – into hope for families around the world.

University Hospital joins 12 other donor sites in Texas with capabilities of accepting cord blood donations for the Texas Cord Blood Bank. The other partner hospitals include: Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, Northeast, Southeast and North Central Baptist hospitals in San Antonio, Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen and Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville in the Rio Grande Valley, Doctors Hospital in Edinburg, Medical City-Dallas hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Midland Memorial Hospital in Midland, McKenna Hospital in New Braunfels and Providence Hospital in Waco.