Cord Stem Cell Transplant
 

Hi Everyone

A cord transplant has now been presented as a better match for me. Am curious to know if anyone on this site has had one and how it went.

Frightened, nervous & wanting to be free of transfusions. Lots of emotions.

Carole

Hi Carole - thanks for the encouraging words to my post. We have to remain positive and focussed on the prospect of a complete cure! Life as a professional patient is no fun.

Before I knew my brother was a match, I discussed the possibility of a haplo/chord transplant - this procedure uses stem cells from a half match - like a child or parent - along with chord stem cells. I was told the half matched cells served as a bridge as the chord cells take a little longer to graft. Doctor said this procedure can have a little more difficult/longer recovery but overall they were seeing results as good as matched donor transplant - but maybe with less graft versus host - is this the procedure they are discussing with you - or just using chord blood?

As you said, trust in your doctors and faith in your strength and determination are key.

You are in my thoughts and prayers too.

Best, Paul

My wife is moving forward with haplo/cord transplant at NIH. As I understand, cord blood transplant does result in lower occurrence/severity of GVHD but there is a risk of graft failure due to insufficient amount of cells available. There are also dual cord blood transplant option to address this issue, but I am not sure if the improvement has been confirmed. Haplo/cord does help in this case by using haplo as a bridge graft source while the Cord blood is slowly taking over the graft over time. Good luck.