A new form of bone marrow and stem cell transplantation between partially mismatched related donors -- called Haplotype MisMatch Transplants -- will soon be available at the Yale Cancer Center (YCC).
The revolutionary technique allows for transplants between parents, siblings or children, even though their human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) are not perfect matches.
"By using family members whose HLAs are partially mismatched, there are more readily available donors. This opens up bone marrow transplantation to almost everyone with a living parent, sibling or child," says Dr. Joseph McGuirk, an expert in Haplotype MisMatch Transplants, who was recently named the new assistant director for allogeneic bone marrow and stem cell transplantation at the YCC.
Allogeneic transplants -- those in which bone marrow or stem cells come from a donor other than the patient -- are used commonly in treating leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma and other diseases of the bone marrow-forming cells. While the best source for a transplant is a brother or sister whose HLAs are a perfect match, only about 30 percent of all patients have an identical match. The rest have turned to the unrelated donor program, a system in which bone marrow recipients are matched with donors from throughout the world.
The YCC is among only a handful of places in the country prepared to perform Haplotype MisMatch Transplants, and the first such procedure is expected to take place at Yale within the next six months. "Partially mismatched, donor-related transplantation is now expanding very quickly into the world community," he says. "With Yale's strong immunology department as a backdrop, we are in a position to become a world leader in this field. We can now offer something special to patients across the country."