April 5, 2007

New Citations

A. Who should get cord blood transplants?
An article by Dr. Juliet Barker from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center concludes: “UCBT is a valid alternative for any patient requiring unrelated donor transplantation without a suitably matched and readily available unrelated volunteer. ” Also, emerging data indicate that in children <16 years with leukemia, the outcome is superior (compared to BMT) with matched UCB and comparable with 4-5/6 matched units, suggesting that UCB should take priority over BM, particularly if there is a 6/6 unit, or a 5/6 unit with a dose >3 x 10⁷ NCs/kg. The data supporting these and other comments are provided in this concise and excellent article, which should be read in the original. See Annotated Bibliography I. Recent Reviews, Citation #4

2. Double unrelated reduced-intensity umbilical cord blood transplantation in adults.
The authors treated 21 adult patients with a reduced-intensity conditioning regimen followed by sequential infusion of 2 partially matched umbilical cord blood (UCB) units. The results led them to conclude that adult patients can tolerate double UCB transplantation well and achieve sustained antitumor responses using their reduced-intensity conditioning regimen. See Annotated Bibliography III. Multi-Unit CBT, Citation #4 and IV. Reduced-Intensity and Non-Myeloablative Cord Blood Transplants, Citation #5

3. Umbilical cord blood transplantation and cytomegalovirus: Posttransplantation infection and donor screening.
This study assessed the incidence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection after transplantation of cord blood (CB) from unrelated donors and evaluated strategies for screening CB donors. See Annotated Bibliography XIV. Adverse Events in CBT, i. Infections (other than EBV), Citation #1

4. Ex vivo expansion of umbilical cord blood stem cells for transplantation: growing knowledge from the hematopoietic niche.
The authors state that ex-vivo expansion of UCB HSC has failed to improve engraftment because of resulting defects that promote apoptosis, disrupt marrow homing and initiate cell cycling. They predict that improved methods for ex vivo expansion will make UCBT available to more patients, decrease engraftment times and allow more rapid immune reconstitution posttransplant. See Annotated Bibliography XVIII. Ex-Vivo Expansion of Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells, Citation #4

5. Isolation of amniotic stem cell lines with potential for therapy.
The authors report the isolation of human and rodent amniotic fluid-derived stem cells that express embryonic and adult stem cell markers. See Annotated Bibliography XIX. Miscellaneous, vii. Other Items, Citation A