Paucity of HLA-identical unrelated donors for African-Americans with hematologic malignancies: the need for new donor options. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Identification of an HLA identical donor/recipient pair using high-resolution techniques at HLA A, B, C, and DRB1 optimizes survival after adult unrelated hematopoietic stem cell transplant. It has been estimated that roughly 50% of African-Americans have suitable unrelated donors based on serologic typing, but there is little information on the likelihood of identifying an HLA-identical unrelated donor using molecular techniques. From February 2002 to May 2007, we performed 51 unrelated donor searches for African-American patients using the National Marrow Donor Program and found HLA identical unrelated donors for only 3. By contrast, 50 (98%) had at least 1, and often multiple, appropriately matched cord blood units available. Very few African-American recipients have HLA-identical unrelated donors. To allow more African-American patients to proceed to transplant, innovative donor strategies, including adult cord blood transplantation, haploidentical transplant, or the identification of permissive mismatches should be investigated.

publication date

  • August 1, 2008

Research

keywords

  • African Americans
  • Black or African American
  • Hematologic Neoplasms
  • Histocompatibility
  • Tissue Donors

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC2556036

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 47249083472

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1016/j.bbmt.2008.06.005

PubMed ID

  • 18640578

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 14

issue

  • 8