Unrelated umbilical cord blood transplantation as salvage treatment for engraftment failure following autologous stem cell transplantation.
We report a case of a patient with multiple myeloma and engraftment failure after high-dose therapy with autologous stem cell transplantation. After rescue treatment with G-CSF and back-up reinfusion of autologous stem cells failed, allogeneic umbilical cord blood transplantation resulted in neutrophil engraftment on day +16 and a 57 months lasting complete remission. This case report shows that umbilical cord blood transplantation is a rescue option after engraftment failure of autologous transplantation, which is available for 99% of patients due to the less stringent HLA matching criteria. Moreover, the prompt availability allows transplantation to be performed at an optimal time.
Fenk
Roland
R
Department of Haematology, Oncology and Clinical Immunology, Heinrich-Heine University, Duesseldorf, Germany. fenk@med.uni-duesseldorf.de
Neumann
Frank
F
Fenk
Barbara
B
Ruf
Leilani
L
Zohren
Fabian
F
Safaian
Nelly-Nancy
NN
Haas
Rainer
R
Kobbe
Guido
G
D005260:Female; D005312:Fetal Blood / Q000637:transplantation*; D006084:Graft Rejection; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D016879:Salvage Therapy; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous