WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF UCB STEM CELL TRANSPLANTS?
There are two basic types of stem cell transplants: • Autologous — an autologous transplant uses your own individual stem cells that have been previously collected and banked. An example of this would be a child receiving their own UCB stem cells that had been collected after birth and stored with a private bank. • Allogeneic — allogeneic stem cells for transplantation can be acquired from three different sources: a blood relative, or “related donor”; or an unrelated donor. o Syngeneic — a syngeneic transplant is a form of allogeneic transplant and uses stem cells that have been collected from an identical twin. o Mini-transplantation — a type of allogeneic transplantation, it is sometimes called the “mixed chimerism transplant”. These patients often display a “mixed” HLA type; known as chimerism. The goal of this new therapy is to give multiple mismatched units of UCB stem cells to obtain a high enough stem cell count to ensure rapid engraftment in an adult. The end goal is to produce
