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From what I understand some cord blood transplants are used: 1) When there isn't a live adult 10/10 HLA compatible donor, or 2) when a previous BMT using bone marrow aspiration from a donor has failed. Cord blood from what I understand is a little more forgiving in HLA type. They measure 6 things and give you a 6/6 match rather than a 10/10 match but I don't know what the 6 things in the HLA are that need to match. The problem with cord blood is that in a single cord there usually isn't enough blood in the cord for good engraftment in an adult, they generally use them for children under the age of 10. I have read about adults getting a double cord blood transplant from two unrelated cords if their first BMT fails (i.e., fails to engraft.) There's also a theory that getting cord blood lessons your chance of getting GVHD, but that is still under test in clinical trials and hasn't been proven.
A friend of mine was called to potentially donate bone marrow recently, and he would be doing PBSCT because he's had previous surgeries on his back, so no doctor wants to aspire anything from his spine. But the NIH articles by Neil Young that I've read says that PBSCT is less effective in transplants than bone marrow aspiration for AA patients.
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