A modified harvest technique for cord blood hematopoietic stem cells.

Human umbilical cord blood is an excellent source of hematopoietic stem cells for research and bone marrow transplantation. We have developed a modified technique which effectively flushes and collects placental derived stem cells. Catheters were inserted into the umbilical artery and vein. Using this sterile and closed system technique, 10 saline diluted cord blood harvests had hematocrits of 16% to 25%, total mononuclear cell counts of 1.17 to 34.4 x 10(8) and volumes of 105-245 ml. The averaged extrapolated colony forming units from five cord blood harvests were as follows: CFU-GM 5.2 x 10(5) (9.96 x 10(4) to 1.24 x 10(6)), BFU-E 8.82 x 10(5) (2.40 x 10(4) to 1.61 x 10(6)) and CFU-GEMM 1.37 x 10(5) (7.33 x 10(3) to 3.18 x 10(5)). This quick technique avoids needle exposure and collects a significant volume of stem cells.