Collaboration between hematopoietic stem cell donor registry and cord blood banks.

Despite the huge number of volunteer donors registered worldwide, only a mean of 50% of patients not having a family donor are transplanted with an unrelated donor. Since 1990, a network has been implemented among some European registries. With the help of the European Community, a more sophisticated network has been developed, the European Marrow Donor Information System (EMDIS). A new project underwent development by registries and the Bone Marrow Donor Worldwide: the EMDIS Cord Blood Registry. It will in the future permit to obtain after a search request, one report containing all of the best donors worldwide and best umbilic cord blood for each patient, taking into account possible double cord blood transplantations and other factors, such as number of nucleated cells, number of CD34+ cells, and methods of reduction. Only a strong collaboration between all hematopoietic stem cell registries and cord blood banks would allow a Registry to propose the best donor/cord blood unit for each patient in each country. Progress in the field of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation may be obtained by the parallel development of cord blood banks worldwide and bone marrow donor registries among countries that include minorities.