Abstract
This chapter discusses the role of cord blood as an alternate source of hematopoietic stem cells for transplantation as compared to bone marrow transplantation (BMT). BMT is a curative treatment for patients suffering from genetic diseases, some cancers, or aplastic anemia. However, only 30% of the patients are lucky enough to find a family donor for bone marrow. The other 70% have to rely on unrelated donors for BMT; only 25% of them find one. The rest of the 50% patients have to look for alternative source of stem cells. For them, cord blood stem could be a solution. Cord blood has been found to have high content of marrow stem cells. Forty-four related matched and mismatched cord-blood transplants—reported to the International Cord Blood Transplant Registry—and 78 transplants from European Centers have been performed for malignant and nonmalignant diseases in patients ranging in age from 0.2 to 20 years. The chapter presents the advantages and disadvantages of cord blood stem-cell transplantation. The chapter concludes with the fact that the use of unrelated cord blood has outstripped that of related cord blood. Unrelated cord blood banks are now widely established and offer a new source of stem cells.
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