A systematic review and meta analysis of unrelated donor umbilical cord blood transplantation versus unrelated donor bone marrow transplantation in adult and pediatric patients

Abstract

Several studies have been performed to compare the results of unrelated donor bone marrow transplantation (UBMT) with unrelated donor cord blood transplantation (UCBT). In order to objectively analyze these data, we performed a systematic review and meta analysis of pooled data on comparative studies on unrelated donor BMT versus UCBT to evaluate if UCBT is equivalent to BMT in patients requiring a haematopoietic stem cell transplant. Combining the studies, 161 children and 331 adults undergoing UCBT (mostly 1-2 antigen mismatched), as well as 316 children and 646 adults undergoing UBMT (almost entirely fully matched with the recipient) were analyzed.