Cord blood transplantation uses blood that remains in the placenta and umbilical cord after childbirth as a source of hematopoietic stem cells for transplant. It has been used to treat more than eighty diseases, mainly blood cancers, bone marrow failure syndromes, inherited metabolic disorders and certain immune deficiencies, helping to rebuild a patient's bone marrow after chemotherapy or radiation treatment for blood cancers or various forms of anemia. Its effectiveness is similar to that of transplants using bone marrow as the stem cell source.
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What is cord blood used to treat?
Blood cancers, anemias, bone marrow failure, inherited metabolic disorders and certain immunodeficiencies, over 80 diseases in all.
Cord blood is collected because it contains stem cells, which can be used to treat hematopoietic and genetic disorders. It is used the same way that hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is used, to reconstitute bone marrow following chemotherapy and/or radiation treatment for various blood cancers and for various forms of anemia, and its efficacy is similar to bone marrow transplants. According to reports from the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, cord blood has been used in the treatment of more than 80 diseases.
What are the risks of a cord blood transplant?
Graft-versus-host disease and severe infection while the immune system recovers; limited cell dose has restricted use in adults.
Adverse effects are similar to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from bone marrow, namely graft-versus-host disease if the cord blood is from a genetically different person, and the risk of severe infection while the immune system is reconstituted. Because limited cell dose has historically restricted cord blood use, particularly in larger children and adults, ex vivo expansion and graft engineering approaches have been developed to increase the effective progenitor/stem cell dose.
Sources
1. Cord Blood (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHistory section
The first successful cord blood transplant (CBT) was done in 1988 in a child with Fanconi anemia.
- Clinical use status
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