Unrelated donor marrow transplantation for severe aplastic anaemia.
Severe aplastic anaemia (SAA) is frequently a lethal disease. Allogeneic marrow transplantation may offer the best chance of a cure but more than 50% of eligible patients will lack a suitable family donor.  The development of large volunteer registries has established unrelated donor marrow transplantation (UD-BMT) as a possible alternative in these patients.  Early clinical studies indicate that UD-BMT for SAA is associated with a significantly greater risk of graft rejection and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) than identical sibling BMT.  Current strategies for improving results of UD-BMT for SAA include improved patient selection, more precise HLA matching between recipient and unrelated donor, and the use of more intensive pre-BMT immunosuppression and GVHD prophylaxis.
United Kingdom Transplant Service, Bristol, U.K.
M R
MR
Howard
D000741:Anemia, Aplastic / Q000601:surgery* / Q000628:therapy; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D005544:Forecasting; D006680:HLA Antigens; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D007165:Immunosuppression Therapy; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous; D016896:Treatment Outcome