Hematopoetic stem cell bank at Zagreb University Hospital Center, Zagreb, Croatia

At Zagreb University Hospital Center, the first cryopreservation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) was performed in 1989 at Department of Hematology. Since that time, more than 1000 products of HSC have been stored for autologous and related homologous use. In 2000, HSC Bank became organizational unit of the Department of Transfusion Medicine. The purpose of the Bank is to ensure quality in procurement, testing, processing, preservation, storage and distribution of HSC as well as transplantation traceability. Today, it serves as a central storage unit for two transplantation centers. At the moment, there are 587 HSC units on stock for 262 patients. In the future, we are planning to establish a public umbilical cord bank and laboratory for cell therapy.