Other issues related to transplants

Cost of transplant

Stem cell transplants cost a lot. The total cost for the procedure can vary, but it can easily reach $100,000 or more. Allogeneic transplants tend to cost even more and can get up to $200,000 or higher.

A transplant is still considered experimental for many types of cancer, especially solid tumors, so insurers may not cover the cost. No matter what illness you have, it is important to find out what your insurer will cover before deciding on a transplant. You need to have an idea of what you might have to pay.

Saving your newborn’s umbilical cord blood for later

Some parents choose to donate their infant’s cord blood to a public blood bank, so that it may be used by anyone who needs it. Another option is that parents can store their newborn’s cord blood in private cord blood banks for possible future use by the child or a close relative. Several private companies offer this service as a form of “biological insurance,” just in case the child should need a stem cell transplant at some point later in life.

The collection fee can be $1,500 to $2,000 and the fee to store the cord blood is around $150 per year. You will want to check on costs because they will probably increase, and they may vary from one part of the country to another.

Parents may want to think about banking their child’s cord blood, especially in families that have a history of, or close relatives with, diseases that may benefit from stem cell transplant. But here are some important points to think about:

• A single cord blood unit would not have enough stem cells for most adults, so personal cord blood use would likely be limited to childhood or early adolescence.
• Most medical specialists feel that the chance that the average child or close relative will be helped by storing his or her own cord blood is very low. Estimates have ranged from 1 out of 1,000 to 1 out of 200,000. This means that most privately-collected cord blood will likely be wasted.
• Some diseases that are treatable by transplant require stem cells that come from another donor (allogeneic). Infusing autologous cord blood stem cells that contain the same defect would not cure the disease.
• The “shelf life” of cord blood is not known. Because cord blood storage is a recent development, scientists do not know whether blood taken at birth will be useful if a family member develops a disease treatable by stem cell transplant 50 years later. Some scientists suspect that advances in immunology and genetics will have substitutes for stored cord blood by that time.

If you would like to learn more about donating your newborn’s cord blood, see the section called “The donor experience.” More information on private family cord blood banking can be found at the Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood Foundation. You can visit their Web site at www.parentsguidecordblood.org.