Amazing as it sounds, researchers from Duke University have just announced that umbilical cord blood can be used as a substitute for patients who need a bone marrow transplant when they can’t find a blood marrow donor. This study was founded in part by the National Institutes of Health and it was presented February 13 by the American Society of Bone Marrow Transplantation in Tampa.

The study followed more than 300 children who needed blood marrow transplants but had no donor match. Doctors tried to treat them with mismatched cord blood donors. Only 10% of the children rejected their transplants and less than 15% experienced serious complications, so this is excellent news for people who don’t have other options if they are unlucky finding compatible donors.

Researchers hope to encourage more transplant physicians to consider mismatched cord blood as a potential source for more and more patients. Bone marrow transplants are used to treat cancer, leukemia, sickle cell anemia and other life-threatening diseases. Furthermore, the use of cord blood would also reach more children, as it would also include minorities who are often difficult to match with a bone marrow donor.

Usually, bone marrow from donors is matched to the recipient based on a six-point comparison of genetic compatibility between the donor and the recipient. In the analysis, children whose donor units were matched at four of six points, the transplant was successful in many patients, as previously mentioned. The researchers studied 314 patients age six months to 21 years, suffering from either malignant or non-malignant conditions. The kids were treated at Duke between 1993 and 2007.