AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF BLOOD BANKS (AABB)

What is AABB and how is it important for Cord Blood banks to get AABB accreditation?

AABB  (formerly known as the ‘American Association of Blood Banks’) is a non-profit international association of organizations and individuals who are involved in activities related totransfusion and transplantation medicine. AABB was founded in 1947 and has its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. The scope of this ‘American’ association has now extended and become international in scope.

AABB offers several types of accreditation to cord blood banks.

This is detailed in their list of AABB Accredited Cord Blood Facilities. Some cord blood banks are not AABB accredited for cord blood, but are rather listed as AABB Accredited Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell (HPC) Facilities. The HPC accreditation is only for adult sources of stem cells which is collected from bone marrow and not for cord blood. AABB accredited facilites are inspected once in every two years.

FACT is another association that offers accreditation. AABB and FACT are both competing to be the most prestigious accreditation. The private cord blood banks are not eligible for FACT accreditation and hence depend on AABB accreditation as their main quality standard in most countries. It is obligatory for AABB accredited cord blood banks to conduct the following medical tests: family: health history mother: test for HIV-I&II, Hepatitis B&C, CMV, HTLV-I&II, Syphilis cord blood: test for ABO, Rh, WBC, CD+34, red cell antibodies, bacterial or fungal contamination.

It is crucial for parents to understand that AABB accreditation does not require a specific procedure for processing cord blood. The accreditation is like a quality review of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP): does the bank have clearly defined procedures, do they follow them, do they maintain accurate records? It does not mandate what those SOP are, and there is a great deal of variation in laboratory practices among accredited banks.