Successful first-line treatment with double umbilical cord blood transplantation in severe aplastic anemia

Abstract

Patients with severe aplastic anemia (SAA) who lack an appropriate matched related donor usually receive immunosuppressive therapy (IST), and those who fail it undergo transplantation from an HLA-matched unrelated donor. However, the treatment for failure after IST or unrelated transplantation has not been satisfactory. Recently, promising results were reported by many groups for umbilical cord blood transplantation (UCBT) as a salvage therapy, including transplantation with two units to overcome the cell-dose barrier of cord blood.1–4 On the basis of these promising results, a boy with acquired SAA was successfully treated with double UCBT as a first-line treatment.