To further improve the experience of patients and staff at transplant centres when selecting and requesting cord blood units for UK patients, the Anthony Nolan/NHSBT Cord Support Programme have recently made some changes and introduced some new free of charge services:
Filtering for TNC and CD34+ cell dose on cord blood unit (CBU) Searches Report
The Search Team at Anthony Nolan is now providing UK transplant centres with WMDA CBU reports only showing CBUs large enough for the specific patient for single UCBT and double UCBT, based on UK guidelines (Little et al, 2021). This should prevent selection of units which have insufficient cell dose for transplant.
New CBU Checklists
We have further developed a CBU quality checklist which indicates if the CBU is suitable for a particular patient, based on their unique characteristics i.e., weight and type of disease. The checklist also assesses all mandatory quality parameters and evaluates pre-freezing and post-thaw potency results where available.
We are allocating resources to roll out this service starting with Graft Identification Advisory Service (GIAS) transplant centres, followed by Cord Support subscribers and then to all UK transplant centres when resources allow.
Red Blood Cell (RBC) Dose Calculation Tool
Our new RBC Dose Tool allows clinicians, nurses, H&I scientists to input the patient weight, CBU volume and either Haematocrit% or RBC volume in ml of up to 10 different CBUs to calculate RBC dose per kgpbw – individually and as a combination for a double UCBT. This will prevent selection of unit(s) with RBC doses which are too high or give an early warning of the situation where washing may be needed. We will put the tool on our website for the use of transplant centres so watch out for an announcement on the Anthony Nolan LinkedIn page and website.
Post-Thaw Clinic
Our recently launched Post-Thaw Clinic allows transplant centre staff to submit questions and concerns regarding post-thaw results to the panel of experts from the Anthony Nolan and NHSBT cord blood banks. Responses are compiled within a 24-hour turn-around-time and returned to the individual at the transplant centre.
If you have any questions or requests, please contact Cord Support