1. ¹Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
2. ²Haematology Department, Westmead Hospital, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia
3. ³The Sydney Cord Blood Bank, Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick, New South Wales, Australia
4. ⁴Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (ABMDR), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
5. ⁵School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia

Correspondence: Dr GN Samuel, Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, University of Sydney, Level 1, Medical Foundation Building K25, Camperdown, New South Wales 2006, Australia. E-mail: gsa07309@bigpond.net.au

Received 29 March 2007; Revised 21 June 2007; Accepted 4 July 2007; Published online 13 August 2007.

Abstract

Over the past decade umbilical cord blood (UCB) has been increasingly used as a source of haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) for patients who require a HSC transplant but do not have an HLA-matched donor. It was anticipated that using UCB as an alternative source of HSCs would increase the chance of finding a donor, particularly for the otherwise underrepresented ethnic minority groups. To evaluate the effectiveness of the Australian public UCB banks to increase the ethnic diversity of available HSC donations, this paper analyses the ethnic diversity of the Sydney Cord Blood Bank (SCBB), comparing this diversity to that of the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (ABMDR). It also examines the ethnic diversity of those patients who, after requesting a haematopoietic stem cell transplantation in the 2-year period between 2003 and 2005, managed to find a suitably matched bone marrow or UCB donor. We show that the ethnic mix of donors to the SCBB has remained generally broad in source, is comparative to the Australian population, and is more diverse than the ABMDR. This, however, may still not be sufficient to substantially increase the likelihood of finding a donor for some ethnic minority groups.