title: Unrelated cord blood transplantation in children--a 10-year experience from UMMC.
abstract: Children who would benefit from a haematopoietic stem cell transplantation often lacked a compatible sibling donor. Unrelated cord blood transplantation was offered as an alternative donor source for patients with a variety of malignant and non-malignant diseases who had no further treatment options. Cord blood units were sourced from various international cord blood registries. The median nucleated and CD34+ cell doses were 8.7 x 10(7)/kg and 2.6 x 10(5)/kg respectively. In spite of adequate cell doses, a high rate of non-engraftment of 32% was observed. Acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) occurred in 14 out of the 15 patients who engrafted with 53% being grade III to IV GVHD. The five year disease free survival was 40.7% with infection and GVHD being the commonest causes of death. The five year disease free survival was 20.5% and 60.7% for malignant and non-malignant diseases respectively.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics, University Malaya Medical Centre, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. chanll@um.edu.my
authors.forename: L L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: H P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Chong
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hany
authors.forename: A Wan
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Ariffin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D036101:Cord Blood Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects; D005260:Female; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male