ABSTRACT
Cord blood is one of the promising sources of hematopoietic stem cell and the public cord blood bank should cryopreserve only high quality, conforming cord blood units for transplantation. Cryopreserved cord blood units have several advantages over other hematopoietic stem cell sources such as bone marrow or mobilized peripheral stem cells; cord blood is in the ready-to-use state after the necessary testing and cause less graft-versus-host disease due to cellular immaturity. The limiting factor is the restricted cell number, which resulted in delayed engraftment and immunologic reconstitution. Selection of cord blood for patients is determined by two criteria: the number of total nucleated cell and the matching of human leukocyte antigen. The cord blood inventory required for any given ethnicity is determined by HLA diversity. In terms of growing interest of cord blood as a stem cell source, we reviewed the current status of cord blood related issues in Korea.