By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
A Korean research team said Wednesday that it has developed a new method that increases the success rate of bone marrow transplants between parents and children.
Dr. Lee Kyoo-hyung of Asan Medical Center said his team managed to lower rejection rates through the use of a sophisticated anti-cancer drug dosage. Rejections during the post-surgery period were around 30 percent, lower than the 40 percent recorded for transplants from siblings.
The procedure, which also works in reverse, from child to parent, is expected to give hope to tens of thousands of leukemia patients.
Lee said his team carried out transplants on 51 leukemia patients and only 13 percent of them were rejected.
The figure is lower than the more common method of bone marrow transplantation, which involves transfer between siblings. Its rejection rate is 20 percent.
The news was welcomed by Park Jin-seok, spokesman for the association of families of leukemia patients.
He said the procedure is an encouraging development since patients have a hard time finding bone marrow donors.
``About 70 percent of donors-to-be withdraw at the last minute. Sometimes there is no donor. Family is always there for a patient and we know that more people are hopeful now.''
Transplants between parent and child have been a tertiary option for sufferers of leukemia.
Since the two share just 50 percent of the same genes, the possibility of rejection during transplantation is high, leaving doctors here reluctant to use the method.
Human leukocyte antigen, a protein in the tissue that deals with genes related to the immune system function in humans, blocked the healing procedure. With the parent sharing only half of the antigen, the surgery was considered too risky.
The primary source for transplants are siblings, who share up to 90 percent of the same genetic profile, followed by third party donation.