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	There are many advantages to using stem cells from umbilical cord blood than stem cells from bone marrow.  Stem cells are more abundant in cord blood samples (approximately 10 times greater than bone marrow samples)

• Obtaining a cord blood sample is painless unlike bone marrow sampling which requires the insertion of a needle into the bone to harvest the marrow.

• Cord blood has less rejection because there does not need to be a perfect HLA match. This means that instead of a perfect 6 of 6 match (as required in bone marrow sampling), cord blood only requires a 3 of 6 match when using a related sample or 4 of 6 match when using an unrelated sample.
  • Graft-verses-host-disease occurs when the donor's immune cells recognize the transplant recipient's cells as "foreign" and attack the recipient's body. This occurs in approximately 60% of bone marrow transplants verses approximately 10% of cord blood transplants.

• Cord blood sampling takes approximately 5 minutes (usually less) to collect, whereas bone marrow sampling takes 1-2 hours.

• Cord blood stem cells are readily available.

• Cord blood has less pathogens (virus, bacteria, etc) than bone marrow.

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Author : Diba Tillery RN, BSN, IBCLC, CPST