Cord blood transplantation in children with haematological malignancies

Umbilical cord blood transplantation (UCBT) is largely used to treat children affected by haematological malignant disorders. In comparison to bone marrow transplantation (BMT), advantages of UCBT include lower incidence and severity of graft-versus-host disease, easier procurement and prompter availability of cord blood cells, and the possibility of using donors having HLA disparities with the recipient. The large experience accumulated so far has shown that UCBT offers to children a probability of cure at least comparable to that of patients transplanted with bone marrow cells. Since it has been demonstrated that an inverse correlation between the number of nucleated cord blood cells infused per kg recipient body weight and the risk of dying for transplantation-related causes exists, recently developed strategies aimed at increasing the number of cord blood progenitors and at favouring stem cell homing could further optimize the outcome of children with leukemia or other malignancies receiving UCBT.