FDA-Approved Cord Blood Treatments: The Real List
The phrase 'cord blood treats 80+ diseases' is widely repeated. It's broadly accurate, but the details matter — most approvals are for hematologic conditions, and the lists for autologous (own) versus allogeneic (donor) use are different.
How FDA approval works for cord blood
In the U.S., licensed cord blood units (HPC-Cord) are FDA-approved for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation — the broad clinical use, not disease by disease. Within that approval, transplant centers use cord blood for any condition where HSCs are the standard treatment. The 'list of 80+ diseases' is the practical clinical application of this single regulatory approval.
Conditions cord blood is routinely used to treat
- Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)
- Acute myeloid leukemia (AML)
- Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)
- Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS)
- Aplastic anemia
- Sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia major
- Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) and other primary immunodeficiencies
- Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome
- Fanconi anemia
- Hurler syndrome and selected metabolic disorders
Autologous vs allogeneic — an important distinction
Most cord blood transplants are allogeneic — using a donor's cord blood, not the patient's own. Autologous use (a child treated with their own banked cord blood) is rare, partly because many of the diseases on the list are genetic or pre-leukemic conditions that would already be present in the baby's own sample. This is one reason public donation is so impactful: a donated unit has many more potential uses than a privately banked autologous unit.
What's experimental vs approved
Research is active in cerebral palsy, autism, type 1 diabetes, hearing loss, and traumatic brain injury — primarily at centers like Duke. These are clinical trials, not FDA-approved standard care. If a bank's marketing implies these are proven uses, that's a red flag.