Sunday, January 17, 2010

First successful use of expanded umbilical-cord blood units to treat leukemia

Source: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Date: January 17, 2010

Summary:

SEATTLE – Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have cleared a major technical hurdle to making umbilical-cord-blood transplants a more widely-used method for treating leukemia and other blood cancers. In a study published in the Jan.17 edition of Nature Medicine, Colleen Delaney, M.D., and colleagues describe the first use of a method to vastly expand the number of stem/progenitor cells from a unit of cord blood in the laboratory that were then infused into patients resulting in successful and rapid engraftment.