Twenty-three patients with high-risk acute and chronic leukemias were studied for up to two and a half years. As is often the case, a suitably matched volunteer donor could not be found for these patients, and without an exact match, a transplant would likely be unsuccessful.
Cord blood is more tolerant of differences between patient and donor, making it possible to perform cord blood transplants without an exact match. Though a single cord blood unit with a satisfactory dose could not be found for these patients, senior study author John Wagner, M.D., Scientific Director of Clinical Research of the University of Minnesota's Blood and Marrow Transplantation Program and Stem Cell Institute, theorized that they could still have successful transplants if two partially-matched units were used for each patient.
"Currently, many adult leukemia patients are not eligible for an umbilical cord blood transplant due to the inability to find a single unit of blood with enough cells for transplantation. With this new technique of increasing the dose by combining two units, this procedure could be made available to thousands more patients and has the potential to save many lives," said Juliet N. Barker, M.B., B.S., Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota and co-author of the study.
While two patients with acute leukemia in relapse died from infe
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Contact: Laura Stark
lstark@hematology.org
202-776-0544
American Society of Hematology
19-Jan-2005