B.C. Women's Hospital's umbilical cord blood bank offers gift of life

North Vancouver resident Hector Walker owes his life to stem cells derived from the umbilical cord blood of a pair of wee strangers.

Walker, who is 62 and had leukemia, had no clue where his doctors at Vancouver General Hospital found the donor stem cells for his 2010 transplant. But hes grateful they did and thrilled that finding a match may become less cumbersome now that B.C. Womens Hospital will soon start asking expectant mothers to donate their newborn babies cord blood, a rich and versatile source of potentially healing stem cells.

At a news conference today, the biggest maternity hospital in the province will be named as a collection site for the new National Public Cord Blood Bank. It is the second hospital in the country to get that distinction (after Ottawa) and will serve as one of only four collection sites across the country.

Finding a bone marrow match was more of a problem for me because Im black. Even my brother wasnt a match, said Walker. Life is so unpredictable. People should understand they can save someones life by doing this.

The hospital was designated a collection site because so many babies are delivered there (7,000 annually) and the patient population is ethnically diverse.

Once a pilot phase of up to half a year is over, healthy, pregnant women giving birth at B.C. Womens will be able to donate the blood from the umbilical cords of their babies. Until now, most umbilical cords have been discarded, which is why Dr. Tanya Petraszko, a Canadian Blood Services (CBS) official, says: Our competition is the garbage can.

Canada has access to international sources but a public bank here should mean that Canadian doctors wont as often have to search the world for life-saving stem cells, especially for difficult-to-match, ethnically diverse patients like Walker (originally from Jamaica).

Because most registered blood and bone marrow donors are Caucasian, finding matches for minority groups is most challenging. In recent years, CBS has been trying to reach out to First Nations, Asian and other ethnic communities in a bid to boost that supply.

Only half of patients who need an unrelated stem cell transplant are able to find one and there are about 1,000 patients across Canada waiting for stem cell transplants. A stem cell transplant requires a DNA match between the donor and recipient, but cord blood cells are more adaptable so theres less chance of a rejection.

Canada is the last G8 country to establish a national bank. It was announced by federal and provincial governments nearly three years ago, after years of deliberations. Nearly $50 million was earmarked in start-up funds but CBS committed to forming a development group to raise another $12.5 million from philanthropic Canadians. (There is still $4 million left to raise).

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B.C. Women's Hospital's umbilical cord blood bank offers gift of life