LAUSR

Background & Aim A key project of the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA) is the annual global trends report, which has become an established instrument to describe the current status of haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) donation worldwide. The report is used to observe trends and changes in number and stem cell source of HSC donations as well as the global exchange of these products. Methods, Results & Conclusion Methods: Organisations worldwide are asked to report data on the number of unrelated volunteer donors and cord blood products listed in their database, as well as the number and cell source of HSC donations provided and to which countries. The data collection has been done through an online questionnaire and the data is automatically stored in an online database. Quality control measures include data validation checks within the reporting system as well as manual data checks done by the WMDA staff. For this abstract we have looked specifically at the global exchange of cord blood units (CBUs) in 2018 compared to 2012. The last year we saw an increase in the shipments of CBUs globally was 2012, which is why we choose to compare to 2012. Additionally, we have calculated the 2018 CBU shipping rates relative to the number of CBUs available. The number of national shipments is included in these shipping rates. Results In 2018, 2.783 CBUs were shipped globally; 419 (15%) were shipped outside of the country of origin and 2.364 (85%) CBUs were shipped nationally (graph 1). In 2012, 4.150 CBUs were shipped globally; 870 (21%) were exported and 3.280 (79%) CBUs were shipped nationally (graph 2). In the past six years, WMDA has observed a 33% (1.376 CBUs) decrease in total shipments, 52% (451 CBUs) in exported shipments and 28% (916 CBUs) decrease in national shipments. The decrease was observed on all continents except Asia. The top 10 shipping rates for CBUs were seen in Japan, UK, China, USA, France, Canada, Spain and Singapore (table 1). Over 95% of the globally used CBUs are provided by these 10 countries. Over 13 countries have a cord blood bank operational and provided less than 5 CBUs and 9 countries did not ship any CBU in 2018. Conclusions The past six years, the WMDA has observed a dropdown in the use of CBUs on a global level. While there is a global decrease in the use of the CBUs, this trend is not observed in Asia. The global CBUs provision is facilitated by a small number of countries.