Intra-bone Cord Blood Transplantation in Patients With Haematological Malignancies

Cord blood (CB) from an unrelated donor is increasingly used an alternative source of hematopoietic stem cells for adults with hematologic malignancies who lack an HLA-matched donor. However, the utilization of single-unit CB for transplantation of adult patients has been impeded by the low number of nucleated cells available from individual CB units. Direct intrabone CB injection (IBCBi) has been recently investigated as a solution to cell dose problem in adults, with the aims of minimizing non-specific loss of progenitors. We set up a phase I-II study to assess the safety and efficacy of CB transplantation by IBCBi in adult patients with advanced or high-risk hematological malignancies