Outcome of Unrelated Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation in India: A Less Explored Horizon.

[OBJECTIVE] There is dearth of clinical data from India regarding outcomes of umbilical cord blood transplant (UCBT). This study aimed to analyze the long-term outcomes in children who underwent UCBT at a single Indian center.

[METHODS] This retrospective study included patients who underwent UCBT between 2011 and 2024 in a tertiary care center in Northern India. Data on HLA-matching, cell dose, conditioning, engraftment, toxicities and survival outcomes were recorded.

[RESULTS] Out of 20 patients with median (Q1, Q3) age 4 (2, 6) years, 11 had leukemia and 9 had immunodeficiencies or enzymopathies. Majority (90%) received myeloablative-conditioning. Median CD34 + cell dose and total nucleated-cell dose were 3.3 × 10/kg, and 9.6 × 10/kg, respectively, with median (Q1, Q3) time for neutrophil engraftment of 28.5 (23, 36) days. The disease-free-survival (DFS) was 40.3, 77.8 and 10.2% in the overall cohort, benign- and malignant-cohorts, respectively, with 20% transplant-related mortality.

[CONCLUSIONS] Umbilical cord blood-transplant showed good outcomes in non-malignant diseases in the absence of matched-related-donors, while, for malignancies, outcomes were suboptimal compared to global figures.