Source: Xinhua
04-10-2009 09:58
Special Report: Tech MaxBEIJING, April. 9 -- A 21-year-old leukemia patient underwent pioneering surgery in a Shanghai hospital Wednesday, when doctors transfused 30 milliliters of umbilical-cord blood donated by a Shanghai cord bank. Today they will transplant a batch of his father's stem cells, which are an imperfect match.
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| Blood sample from leukemia patient |
This combination of umbilical-cord blood and half-matched stem cells can offer lifesaving transplant opportunities to many more patients than traditional methods, which require a perfect match between patient and donor, said doctors from Shanghai No. 1 People's Hospital.
It will be a month before results of the transplant are determined.
About 40,000 to 50,000 people on China's mainland are diagnosed with leukemia every year - alf of them children. Only about 1,000 are able to receive a stem-cell transplant because of the difficulty of finding a matching donor.
The chances of finding a perfectly matched donor are as little as one in 100,000, when direct blood-relatives are not available. The possibility of an exact match is one in four between immediate relatives.
