Umbilical blood offers new hope against leukaemia

UMBILICAL cord blood offers better treatment options for children with leukaemia than bone marrow, a study has shown.

Scientists found cord blood survival rates were equal to or better than those for marrow transplants.

The crucial difference was that it was not necessary to find a cord blood donor with closely matching blood cell proteins.

Bone marrow from an unmatched donor cannot be transplanted without triggering a severe immune system response.

For this reason, patients often receive bone marrow from near-relatives.

Both bone marrow and blood from babies’ umbilical cords contain stem cells that create new blood cells, including the immune system white cells that become cancerous in leukaemia patients.

There is considerable controversy over which treatment should be considered the “gold standard” for childhood leukaemia.

Dr John Wagner, from the US team at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, whose findings were reported yesterday in The Lancet medical journal, said: “What this study suggests is that cord blood need not be considered a second line therapy any longer. The fact that cord blood is banked and readily available with little notice is a great advantage.

“For the first time, the timing of transplantation can be dictated by the patient’s needs as opposed to the availability of the matched bone marrow.”

The study showed that although cord blood took longer to rebuild blood-making cells in the body, it was associated with a lower risk of rejection.

Higher cell doses for cord blood transplants improved survival rates.