The New England journal of medicine
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Cord-Blood Transplantation in Patients with Minimal Residual Disease.
The majority of patients in need of a hematopoietic-cell transplant do not have a matched related donor. Data are needed to inform the choice among various alternative donor-cell sources. ⋯ Our data suggest that among patients with pretransplantation minimal residual disease, the probability of overall survival after receipt of a transplant from a cord-blood donor was at least as favorable as that after receipt of a transplant from an HLA-matched unrelated donor and was significantly higher than the probability after receipt of a transplant from an HLA-mismatched unrelated donor. Furthermore, the probability of relapse was lower in the cord-blood group than in either of the other groups.