A 26-YEAR-OLD local woman suffering acute leukemia received a novel stem cell transplant at Shanghai General Hospital today.
Yang Yingjie received the transplant of her father’s 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 2500th patient 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 stabilize her condition for transplant.
However, she couldn’t find a match at stem cell donor’s bank and had to use her father’s — a half match.
We used a unified stem cell transplant therapy in this case. It is also a new breakthrough of leukemia treatment in 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 transplant with 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.