Hema Quebec celebrates banking 10,000th unit of cord blood

A packaged cord-blood unit is shown in a handout photo from Canadian Blood Services.

Hema Quebec's public cord blood bank, which was the first ever to open in Canada, is celebrating banking its 10,000th unit Monday.

The cord blood bank opened in 2004 and collects, processes, analyzes and stores umbilical cord blood, which is a source of stem cells. Blood from the umbilical cord is removed at birth, processed and stored in specialized tanks at -150 degrees Celsius.

Those cells help treat diseases such as leukemia.

Lucas Di Tecco was diagnosed with leukemia when he was nine years old and received a cord blood transfusion.

“When people see this, they will see how important this is, how awesome and great it is that people are doing this, because it’s so simple yet you can save a life so easily,” the now-21-year-old said.

Mai Duong, a Vietnamese-Canadian woman who was diagnosed with cancer and learned she needed a stem cell transplant, received a cord blood donation last year, after difficulty finding a match.

"Somewhere in the world, a mother gave birth and gave a second breath of life to another mother," she said in a release.

The cord blood units collected here in Quebec have been used in patients across Canada and the U.S., but also the Netherlands, England and France. By reaching the 10,000 milestone, Canada has been place amongst the top cord blood banks in the world.

“It takes a long time to build the number of units, the milestone that we reached today because we want high quality products so we're very specific in our criteria,” said Susie Joron, manager of the Hema Quebec stem cell registry.

According to Hema Quebec, more than 1,000 Canadians need a stem cell transplant right now, including close to 100 patients in Quebec.

Click here to find out about registering to the public cord bank record.