Haploidentical Transplant for Patients Without HLA-Matched Donors

Anne Wooford, MD, Wake Forest Baptist Health, provides background on her presentation around allogeneic stem cell transplant for the 2022 Transplantation & Cellular Therapy (TCT) Meetings.

Currently, allogeneic stem cell transplant (ASCT) is the only curative modality for some hematologic malignancies and bone marrow failure diseases. However, getting a human leukocyte antigen (HLA) match related or unrelated donor is not available to some patients due to ethnic disparities in specific populations, especially for ethnic minorities.

The study examined by Wooford at Wake Forest between 2016 and 2021 enrolled 27 patients treated on an IRB-approved protocol using haploidentical donors in ASCT. Those who had no HLA matched donor identified and a variety of hematological conditions were enrolled.

Transcription:

0:08 | Our presentation is a clinical study that we did at Wake Forest looking at the patient experience and outcomes for haploidentical stem cell transplant. This involved 27 patients who were unable to find an HLA match donor, and they had a variety of hematological conditions for which this was standard of therapy for a potential cure. All of these patients had a haploidentical donor available to them. What that is when you're looking for a donor for a stem cell transplant, you want to have the human leukocyte antigens matched or the HLA matched.

0:55 | Some patients are not able to find a match donor. This disproportionately affects ethnic minorities who may be underrepresented in the National Marrow Donor Registry program. An alternate donor source is a haplo donor. Instead of having an exact match for all of your human leukocyte antigens, you're a half match, so you have a complete match on 1 allele that you received from a parent or that you gave to your child.