Medical experts are urging health authorities to issue rules on umbilical cord blood storage and use to boost donations of the life-saving stem cells.

The cells from newborn babies can treat leukemia and other diseases of the immune system, but only two percent of the city's 150,000 newborns delivered last year donated umbilical cord blood.

Currently, hospitals don't ask new mothers whether they want to keep, donate or throw away the umbilical cord blood, officials told a science forum on cord blood technology in Shanghai yesterday.

"Twenty-nine states in the United States are making or have made rules on the issue. For instance, doctors in Arizona must ask parents' plans for umbilical cord blood starting this year," said Zheng Bin, an official from Shanghai Cord Blood Bank. "It is a very meaningful method to promote the awareness of cord blood use."

According to him, the bank only collected 3,000 samples for private storage or donation in 2006.

So far, the bank has established links with some 30 local hospitals offering maternity services to provide information on cord blood storage and donation.

"Less than 40 percent of pregnant women have heard of umbilical cord blood," Zheng said. "Even many doctors or health officials are ignorant on the issue."

According to experts, cord blood and bone marrow transplants are used in similar ways. The key ingredient in both is stem cells that give rise to all other cells in the body, including blood and immune cells.

But stem cells in cord blood are less mature than those in adult bone marrow, so there is less rejection by the recipient.

"The chances of finding an acceptable matching donor for a patient is 50 to 100 times higher with umbilical cord blood compared to bone marrow," said Gao Feng, a member of an expert panel on cord blood under the Ministry of Health.

About 40,000 to 50,000 Chinese are diagnosed with leukemia every year. Only one percent of patients are able to receive a stem cell transplant because of the difficulty of finding a matching donor.

"Cord blood is an important alternative for patients to find a matched sample," said Zheng. "Researchers are using stem cells to treat leukemia, spinal injuries and cardiac muscle injuries. In Japan, half of patients get samples from the cord blood bank and half get donations from a bone marrow bank."

(Shanghai Daily August 30, 2007)