Bone marrow and blood stem cell transplant survival rates equal, when donor is unrelated to patient
Monday, December 12, 2011 - 16:31
in Health & Medicine
Patients who receive a blood stem cell transplant from a donor outside of their family to treat leukemia and other blood diseases are more likely to have graft failure but less likely to experience graft-versus-host disease, a condition caused by the donor cells attacking the recipient's body, if the transplanted blood cells come directly from a donor's bone marrow, rather than from blood stem cells circulating in the donor's bloodstream (PBSCs), according to new research. Although the study showed differences in the type and extent of complications, the results showed no difference in patient survival rates between these two major sources of donated blood cells.