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Friday, 21st January 2005
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Researchers examined a new technique that combines two cord blood
units from different donors for transplantation into leukemia patients.
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(WASHINGTON, January 19, 2005) ? Stem cell transplantation using
umbilical cord blood is a standard treatment option for blood disorders
in children, but not for adults, due to the difficulty of obtaining
a sufficiently large dose of cells.
To solve this problem, researchers
from the University of Minnesota examined a new technique that combines
two cord blood units from different donors for transplantation into
adult or adolescent leukemia patients. Their study is to be published
in the February 1, 2005, issue of Blood, the official journal
of the American Society of Hematology.
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 infection
shortly after the transplant, in the remaining 21 patients, the
transplanted stem cells completely incorporated themselves in the
patient's body and began to produce normal, healthy cells. Disease-free
survival was 57 percent at one year and, for those who received
the transplant while their cancer was in remission, the success
rate was even higher at 72 percent.
"The results of this study are heartening, but further investigation
of this approach in larger clinical trials is needed to determine
the full impact of this transplant procedure for adults and larger
adolescents," said George Q. Daley, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Director
of the Stem Cell/Developmental Biology research program at Children's
Hospital Boston.
Sources
Blood.
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