What is the difference between cord blood and bone marrow transplants?
Transplantation using stem cells derived from cord blood rather than bone marrow has many advantages. These include immediate availability, a painless and non-invasive collection process, a lower risk of infectious complications, a superior capacity for proliferation and self-renewal, a greater tolerance for tissue mismatch and most importantly, a significantly reduced risk of fatal post-transplantation “graft-versus-host” disease. This is because cord blood stem cells are more immunologically immature and thus more tolerant than bone marrow stem cells.
