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There is currently considerable interest in attempting to cure sickle cell disease (SCD) and thalassemia major (TM) by transplantation of healthy hematopoietic cells derived from either the bone marrow or cord blood. To determine which of these sources is optimal, international investigators conducted a retrospective, registry-based study that compared outcomes between 389 patients receiving bone-marrow transplantation (BMT; 130 with SCD and 259 with TM) and 96 patients receiving cord-blood transplantation (CBT; 30 with SCD and 66 with TM) from human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-identical siblings.
BMT recipients were older than CBT recipients (8.1 years vs. 5.9 years; P=0.02), heavier (23 kg vs. 19 kg; P=0.01), and treated less recently (1999 vs…