RESUMO
BACKGROUND AIMS: Umbilical cord blood (UCB) cells are a new alternative to bone marrow source for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and their use has increased in the last decade. Thus efforts are being made to improve the umbilical cord blood unit's quality. Besides compatibility, other factors, such as the total nucleated cell (TNC) count and the percentage of CD34(+) cells in the product, are very important for a successful transplant outcome. Our aim was to describe our donor population and assess the best cord blood collection technique at Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein's cord blood bank (São Paulo, Brazil). METHODS: This was a retrospective study in which all analyses were performed simultaneously. A Student's t-test was used for qualitative variables for non-matched samples. For qualitative analyses, we used either the chi-square test or the exact Fisher's test. RESULTS: The stratification of the population characteristics allowed us to determine which ones had an impact on unit volume, TNC count and percentage of CD34(+) cells. A significant correlation was observed between donor characteristics and the quality of UCB units as related to maternal and gestational age, type of pregnancy, route of delivery, cord blood collection technique and birth weight. CONCLUSIONS: We found that cord blood collection technique and newborn weight were significantly correlated with the TNC content. The collection technique used at our institution significantly improved the UCB unit volume and consequently the TNC count. Some findings, such as the impact of maternal age and newborn weight, have led us to re-evaluate our protocol in order to achieve better results.