It’s important to ask these two questions:
- Does the bank offer a live stem cell count guarantee?
- How many MSCs will my child have access to and does the bank have the technology to potentially provide billions of MSCs?
Often banks will provide a Total Nucleated Cell (TNC) count, which is misleading as it does not provide a live stem cell count. Research shows that there are only about 1 million to 3 million live stem cells natively available within cord blood and cord tissue samples. VitalCells treats your child’s stem cells the same as its thousands of adult clients, ensuring your child will have ample access to hundreds of millions of their own personal stem cells far beyond their childhood, making storing your newborn’s stem cells a lifelong decision. At VitalCells, we do not add or change anything about the cells. We simply put the cells in an environment where they can do what they naturally do best: self-replicate.
Total Nucleated Cell (TNC) Count measures the total number of dead and alive cells that contain a nucleus (excluding red blood cells but is not limited to just stem cells) in a sample. Stem cells only comprise a small portion of the TNC count. Most importantly, TNC count does not measure the viability of the cells which states if the cells counted are dead or alive.
VtialCells verifies a live stem cell count multiple different ways. We perform viability analysis on all samples before cryopreservation and before shipping samples, which counts the total number of live stem cells. Internally, we have multiple techniques, both automated and manual, for live stem cell counting. We also perform studies on our stem cell samples to confirm they hold the proper stem cell markers.