Red Blood Cells From Umbilical Cord for Transfusion of Preterm Infants

Prematurity is an important maternal and child health problem due to its incidence and associated complications. Anaemia is a frequent problem in extremely preterm infants (EPI) whose treatment often requires red blood cell (RBC) transfusion. This product is currently obtained from adult blood (AB) donor. The incidence of some prematurity complications have been demonstrated to increase with AB-RBC tranfusions mainly because of the higher oxygen tissue release, such as retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). In addition, AB-RBC could contain small amounts of heavy metals that could be toxic for EPI. RBC from umbilical cord blood (UCB-RBC) might be a better alternative as it does not change the hemoglobin profile and consequently might decrease the oxygen toxicity. Several studies have evaluated the safety of UCB-RBC transfusions in preterm infants without finding a higher risk of complications compared with AB-RBC transfusions. A pilot study has been designed to evaluate the safety of UCB-RBC for transfusion in EPI and to determine the feasibility and efficacy of UCB-RBC for transfusion in this group of patients.