Posts Tagged ‘hospital laboratory’

What Is The History Of Blood Banks?

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Blood is an important constituent of the human body. It is the factor responsible for sustaining life itself. Blood is the life-maintaining fluid that circulates through the body’s heart, arteries, veins and capillaries. In case of any lose of blood the need for blood transfusion arises thus the importance of blood banks.

A blood bank is a bank of blood or blood components, gathered as a result of blood donation, stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusions. History of Blood Banks 1901 Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian physician, whom we see as the most important individual in the field of human Blood, categorized the first three human Blood groups A, B and O. Without this discovery and the subsequent research, there would be no Blood banking. 1936 Bernard Fantus, director of therapeutics at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago, established the first Blood bank in the United States, creating a hospital laboratory that can preserve and store donor Blood 1940 Dr Charles Drew, a graduate of McGill University Medical School in Montreal, researched and found a technique for long-term preservation of Blood plasma.

1947 The American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) was formed to “promote common goals among Blood banking facilities and the American Blood donating public.” 1950 Carl Walter and W.P. Murphy, Jr., introduced the plastic bag for blood collection. Replacing breakable glass bottles with durable plastic bags allowed for the evolution of a collection system capable of safe and easy preparation of multiple blood components from a single unit of Whole Blood. 1979 An anticoagulant preservative, CPDA-1 was introduced. It decreased wastage from expiration and facilitated resource sharing among blood banks. Newer solutions contain adenine and extend the shelf life of red cells to 42 days.

Do I Look Like I Have A Care?

Do I Look Like I Have A Care?

Why Is Baby Cord Family Services Secretive?

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Quietly, inconspicuously and possibly secretively Cord blood, especially placental cord blood, is changing many lives today. Through organizations like blood cord family services where the waste from a babies birth, otherwise known as placental cord blood, is being collected and which is now realized that it certainly is not waste in any form.

With health problems like leukemia a growing role is becoming obvious for umbical cord blood research as cord blood is playing an important function in treatment of such diseases. Also many other life-threatening blood diseases like lymphoma. Once if you had a bone marrow transplant offered and needed for a treatment for your medical condition, now you may be able to receive a cord blood transplant as a suitable option if available. This choice of using baby blood cord banking facilities is usually up to the Doctor in charge of your case.

Umbilical blood banking which uses cord blood that is taken from the baby and has such great curing expectations as it contains babies stem cells. In order to use this great resource the removing of the umbilical cord blood is in no way detrimental to the baby. In times gone by this blood would have normally be thrown away and treated as plain old medical waste. Along with research into mesothelioma and many other cancers this type of research is priceless.

The contraversy over baby blood cord banking comes about when it is not only stored by public facilities but also by private umbilical blood banking and cord blood services organozations for private use inthe future by the rich. The advanyage of having cord blood stored Publicly is they are able to accept donations of baby cord blood to be used for anyone in need. Whereas private cord blood banking groups dissimilar to public cord blood banking is not wholly supported by the medical community.

So I do not need my cord blood?

So I do not need my cord blood?