An emerging field of cancer research may open up the pool of potential donors for people seeking stem cell transplants.
When transplant patients find a donor ‘match,’ it means their cells carry similar hereditary proteins. With siblings, there’s only a 25-percent chance that they can donate to each other.
However, in recent years have doctors seen success with transplants where patients are only ‘half matches’. Doctor RizwanRomee at the Washington University in St. Louis says his team has performed 80 of these transplants—more than half in the last year alone.
“That’s when I feel we have saved someone’s life, and someone who would not otherwise have had a chance to go through transplantation. It’s a wonderful feeling.”
The procedure has its risks, but Romee says they’ve been able to bring survival rates for half-match donations to the same place as full-match donations.