Quality-assessments of characteristics of placental/umbilical cord blood associated with maternal age- and parity-related factor.

Umbilical cord blood (CB) has been widely used for unrelated allogeneic stem cell transplantation. It is important to determine the quality of CB units to avoid frequent problem of limited cell yields. However, no practical and/or optimum obstetric factors to predict them are yet available. This study analyzed the relationship between maternal/neonatal obstetric factors and the laboratory parameters of CB units to identify the optimum factors associated with a high yield of total nucleated cells (TNC). Primiparae in their early 30s may be one of the first selection criteria for CB donors to obtain higher yield of TNC.