Breakthrough in leukemia treatment

Scientists have overcome a technical obstacle and made first successful use of expanded umbilical-cord blood units to treat leukaemia and other blood cancers.

Experts at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center spent their efforts in making umbilical-cord-blood transplants a more widely-used method.

Colleen Delaney and colleagues based their work on an approach by developed by Irwin Bernstein, a member of the Hutchinson Center's Clinical Research Division.

The pioneering technique to vastly expand the number of stem/progenitor cells from a single unit of cord blood in the laboratory that were then infused into patients resulting in successful and rapid engraftment could decrease the risk of early death, the authors said.

Delaney, an assistant member in the Hutchinson Center's Clinical Research Division and an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine, explained: