hi teresa,
it is very very rare that a family member other than a sibling is a good enough HLA match to qualify as a donor.
unrelated HLA matched donor searches may be more desirable than trying to get a close match from someone who is more distantly related like a nephew or niece. it is not unheard of that a parent can match but this is very rare.
there is another source of stem cells and that is from unbilical cord blood. to my knowledge, there are not many -if any?- centres in the UK that are using this source at the moment. however there is a centre in the USA that has done extensive research on this form of transplant... i have posted a link to the relevant page on their website ...see below.
i hope this helps. they are also performing mini allograft or 'non-myeloablative preparative therapy' sct's.
Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation Programme
Transplantation for Adult Patients
at University of Minnesota in the US ...click on link.
University of Minnesota
here is a snip from the above page.....
"...Until recently, there were some unique problems to be overcome in the transplantation of adults using umbilical cord blood. We know that the number of stem cells in cord blood (i.e. the cell dose) has a very important effect on survival after transplant. For larger teenagers and adults, a single cord blood unit often does not contain enough stem cells to perform the transplant safely. Therefore, we investigated transplantation of two closely HLA matched cord blood units or double umbilical cord blood transplant as a way to increase the number of cord blood stem cells transplanted. Investigators at the University of Minnesota were the first to investigate the feasibility, safety and efficacy of mixing two closely HLA matched UCB units. This novel treatment has opened up cord blood transplants to patients as never before and has gotten worldwide attention. The results were better than expected.
Recovery of the blood and marrow is now highly likely in adults in contrast to past results with a single cord blood unit.
Severe GVHD remains low despite 2 antigen mismatching.
Survival exceeds 70% at 1 year for patients in remission and who received a full preparative therapy.
Relapse is less than 10% for those transplanted in remission.
In addition to speeding recovery of white cells, results so far suggest that double UCB transplantation in adults is associated with a lower risk of relapse possibly because there are two healthy immune systems capable of rejecting the leukemia or tumor cells.
In addition, we know that 1) older adult patients, 2) those that have relapsed after a prior transplant, 3) those that have already had extensive therapy for their cancer, or 4) those who have other illnesses or complications, will not be strong enough to undergo high dose chemotherapy and radiation. Therefore, we are investigating a non-myeloablative preparative therapy that still enables the growth of the umbilical cord blood cells in the body. These transplants are designed to be less toxic and are effective by means of an immunological effect of the umbilical cord blood cells attacking cancer cells known as the "graft-versus-malignancy" effect. This study represents another first for the University of Minnesota investigators' breakthrough work."
sandy C ;o)
