January 20, 2025
Nearly 9,000 units have been collected at Alberta’s only hospital collection site
EDMONTON – Canadian Blood Services (CBS) is celebrating 10 years of banking the gift of cord blood at the Royal Alexandra Hospital’s Lois Hole Hospital for Women (LHHW).
Since 2015, nearly 9,000 units of cord blood have been collected at the hospital for patients in need of a stem cell transplant. Cord blood contains life-saving stem cells that can treat more than 80 diseases and disorders, including leukemia, lymphoma, aplastic anemia and sickle cell disease.
“Collecting cord blood donations has been fully embraced by Alberta Health Services and we are so grateful for the support and participation of the dedicated labour and delivery healthcare team at the Lois Hole,” said Kathy Ganz, Director, Stem Cells at CBS.
“This partnership is essential for CBS to collect donor cord blood, which is available to anyone in Canada and around the world who may be looking for a stem cell match.”
At any given time, nearly 1,000 patients across Canada are waiting for a stem cell transplant. Typically, cord blood would be discarded as medical waste. By collecting it, cord blood becomes a valuable resource for transplant and research.
CBS’ Cord Blood Bank has been in operation since September 2013 when it launched in Ottawa. Collections started in Brampton in July of the following year, and then in Vancouver and Edmonton in January 2015. CBS’ Cord Blood Bank is a free service, providing cord blood stem cells available for anyone in Canada and around the world.
As a labour and delivery nurse at the Lois Hole, Kelsey Koch was familiar with the possibility and simplicity of the CBS cord blood donation process. She donated her son’s cord blood in 2016 and, four years later, received a certificate from CBS notifying her that her son’s cord blood donation had been used.
“When I donated, I never expected to hear if or when our donation would be used,” says Koch. “I wanted to donate because of the potential to help someone else. Knowing my son’s cord blood may have been the gift of life for another family feels like a gift in return.”
After CBS collects a donation, a small amount of the cord blood is tested at the hospital to determine if it has enough volume and stem cells to qualify for storage. CBS banks about 16 per cent of the cord blood units collected from their four collection sites in Canada. The remaining units are made available to scientists and support hundreds of research initiatives across Canada.
Since 2015, 889 cord blood collections from the Lois Hole have been banked with CBS. Edmonton has the highest cord blood stem cell transplant rate across the four Canadian sites with 27 being used for transplant.
Today, Canadian Blood Services’ Cord Blood Bank is globally recognized for quality and is consistently ranked in the top five for cord blood shipment rates among operations of comparable size by the World Marrow Donor Association. Clinicians worldwide also acknowledge the high quality of its units, measured by stem cell count and the testing each banked unit undergoes.
Due to the low volume of stem cells in cord blood, more than 40 per cent of cord blood units selected for transplant have been used to treat patients under the age of four.
Unlike donated stem cells from adults, such as bone marrow, donated cord blood does not need to be an exact match to a patient. For patients who can’t find a match in the adult stem cell registry, the public cord blood bank might be their only alternative.
Cord blood stem cell donations can be stored for a long time before being used. There are examples of cord blood stem cells being transplanted after 16 years without any detected deterioration in quality.
Canadian Blood Services is a not-for-profit charitable organization. Regulated by Health Canada as a biologics manufacturer and primarily funded by the provincial and territorial ministries of health, Canadian Blood Services operates with a national scope, infrastructure and governance that make it unique within Canadian healthcare. In the domain of blood, plasma and stem cells, we provide services for patients on behalf of all provincial and territorial governments except Quebec. The national transplant registry for interprovincial organ sharing and related programs reaches into all provinces and territories, as a biological lifeline for Canadians.
Alberta Health Services provides a range of healthcare services for more than four million adults and children living in Alberta. Our mission is to provide excellent, patient-focused healthcare that is accessible and sustainable for all Albertans. Our current focus is on reducing emergency department wait times, improving EMS response times, increasing access to surgeries, and improving patient flow.
