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Unrelated cord blood transplantation in aplastic anemia: is anti-thymocyte globulin indispensable for conditioning?

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 52, pages 1659–1661 (2017)Cite this article

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Currently, UBMT is recommended for the treatment of patients with severe aplastic anemia (SAA) who do not have HLA-matched siblings and do not respond to immunosuppressive therapy.1 In contrast, early studies demonstrated that the use of UCBT for SAA was associated with a higher incidence of graft failure and poor outcomes.2 Because UCBT is indicated only for patients who lack a suitable UBMT donor, there is limited experience and the optimal conditioning regimen is unknown.

We retrospectively analyzed the outcomes of 27 Japanese children with acquired AA who received UCBT between 1998 and 2013. Data collected as of October 2014 were analyzed. Ten patients were already included in the previous study.3 The data management committee of the Japan Society for Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (JSHCT) approved this study. Patients’ characteristics and transplant outcomes are summarized in Table 1 and Online Supplementary Table S1. The HLA disparities for both the GVH and host-versus-graft directions are also shown in Supplementary Table S1. The median total nucleated cell number and CD34-positive cell number at cryopreservation were 3.99 × 107/kg (range, 0.09–16.11) and 1.31 × 105/kg (range, 0.39–6.17), respectively.

Table 1 Transplantation outcomes
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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Fujita Health University, Toyoake, Japan

    K Kudo

  2. Department of Pediatrics, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan

    H Muramatsu, A Narita & S Kojima

  3. Department of Hematology and Oncology, Children's Medical Center, Japanese Red Cross Nagoya First Hospital, Nagoya, Japan

    N Yoshida & K Kato

  4. Department of Pediatrics, Sapporo Hokuyu Hospital, Sapporo, Japan

    R Kobayashi

  5. Department of Regeneration Medicine, Tokai University, Isehara, Japan

    H Yabe

  6. Department of Pediatrics, Iwate Medical University, Morioka, Japan

    M Endo

  7. Department of Hematology/Oncology, Osaka Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Izumi, Japan

    M Inoue

  8. Department of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Osaka City General Hospital, Osaka, Japan

    J Hara

  9. Department of Pediatrics, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama, Japan

    S Kounami

  10. Department of Pediatrics, National Kyushu Cancer Center, Fukuoka, Japan

    J Inagaki

  11. Department of Pediatrics, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Japan

    Y Hashii

  12. Division of Pediatrics, Tokyo Metropolitan Cancer and Infectious Disease Center Komagome Hospital, Tokyo, Japan

    K Tabuchi

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  1. K Kudo
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  2. H Muramatsu
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  15. S Kojima
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to S Kojima.

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Supplementary Information accompanies this paper on Bone Marrow Transplantation website

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Kudo, K., Muramatsu, H., Narita, A. et al. Unrelated cord blood transplantation in aplastic anemia: is anti-thymocyte globulin indispensable for conditioning?. Bone Marrow Transplant 52, 1659–1661 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/bmt.2017.169

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