A 26-YEAR-OLD localwoman suffering acute leukemia received a novel stem cell transplant at Shanghai General Hospital today.

Yang Yingjie received the transplant of her fathers steam cell, which is only a half match of hers, and another unit of matched umbilical cord blood to reduce rejection.

The patient is also the 2500thpatient who received umbilical cord blood transfusion from Shanghai Cord Blood Bank, the only licensed umbilical cord blood bank in the city.

Yang was found to have acute leukemia in December last year. She received treatment at Shanghai General Hospital to stabilizeher condition for transplant.

However, she couldnt find a match at stem cell donors bank and had to use her fathersa half match.

We used a unified stem cell transplant therapy in this case. It is also a new breakthrough of leukemia treatmentin recent years,said Dr Wang Chun from Shanghai General Hospital. Each unit of umbilical cord blood is only 50 milliliters, which is not enough for an adult patient. However a unified transplantwith half matched stem cells from adult donor and a unit of fully matched umbilical cord blood can reduce rejection and streamline the transplant success of half-matched stem cells.

Stem cells from umbilical cord blood are less mature than those in adult bone marrow, so they are less prone to rejection by the recipient and more active in developing into different types of cells, experts explained.

Wang said his team has used this therapy to treat somecomplicated leukemia patients and received good results.

There are about 5 million leukemia patients in China and half of them are children. Stem cells have been used in the treatment of many diseases including leukemia, lymphoma and anemia. The most common disease category is leukemia.

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Patient receives novel stem cell transplant - Shanghai Daily (subscription)

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