Cord Stem Cell Transplant

[Carole L]

Hi Everyone

A cord transplant has now been presented as a better match for me. Am curious to know if anyone on this site has had one and how it went.

Frightened, nervous & wanting to be free of transfusions. Lots of emotions.

Carole

[PaulS]

Hi Carole - thanks for the encouraging words to my post. We have to remain positive and focussed on the prospect of a complete cure! Life as a professional patient is no fun.

Before I knew my brother was a match, I discussed the possibility of a haplo/chord transplant - this procedure uses stem cells from a half match - like a child or parent - along with chord stem cells. I was told the half matched cells served as a bridge as the chord cells take a little longer to graft. Doctor said this procedure can have a little more difficult/longer recovery but overall they were seeing results as good as matched donor transplant - but maybe with less graft versus host - is this the procedure they are discussing with you - or just using chord blood?

As you said, trust in your doctors and faith in your strength and determination are key.

You are in my thoughts and prayers too.

Best, Paul

[clairekim]

My wife is moving forward with haplo/cord transplant at NIH. As I understand, cord blood transplant does result in lower occurrence/severity of GVHD but there is a risk of graft failure due to insufficient amount of cells available. There are also dual cord blood transplant option to address this issue, but I am not sure if the improvement has been confirmed. Haplo/cord does help in this case by using haplo as a bridge graft source while the Cord blood is slowly taking over the graft over time. Good luck.