• Posted April 29, 2026

Pooled Umbilical Cord Blood Boosts Stem Cell Transplant Success, Trial Finds

A new way of using umbilical cord blood — by pooling blood from multiple donors — could make it easier to receive a stem cell transplant for leukemia, a new study says.

Nearly everyone in a small group of patients who received these pooled transplants survived at least one year without severe signs of rejection, researchers reported April 27 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“This is the first time transplant patients received cells from what amounts to nine different human beings,” lead researcher Dr. Filippo Milano, director of the Cord Blood Program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, said in a news release.

Umbilical cord blood donations can help patients with blood cancer or other blood diseases who need a stem cell transplant, which essentially creates a healthy reset for a person’s blood-producing bone marrow.

Stem cells in cord blood do not have to be as stringently matched to be safe and effective, making them a good option for people who lack a close donor match, researchers said.

However, the number of cells in a single unit of donated cord blood is often too small to help any given patient, researchers said.

For this trial, researchers created a new stem cell product called dilanubicel (Deverra Therapeutics), which combines blood stem cells isolated from six to eight different units of donated cord blood. Those stem cells are nurtured in a lab and allowed to grow and expand before they are infused into a patient.

The team recruited 28 patients with leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome — two types of blood cancer — to receive dilanubicel along with a single unit of cord blood.

Results showed that 27 of the 28 patients survived at least one year, with none experiencing severe symptoms related to rejection of the transplant.

One patient died, and another relapsed nearly a year after the transplant and received another treatment. That patient is now at least a year into remission.

Researchers found that the pooled stem cells did not engraft long-term into the patient’s bone marrow, but they provided essential early immune support. A week after transplant, the patients’ blood consistently showed recovery driven by dilanubicel.

“The cells from the pooled donor stem cell product did not remain long term, but they all helped the matched cord blood donor establish a new, healthy immune system in the patient,” Milano said.

Researchers are now seeking additional funding for follow-up clinical trials that include more patients.

“Cord blood continues to be an important option for people who need a stem cell transplant, especially those with high-risk disease,” Milano said.

More information

The Cleveland Clinic has more about myelodysplastic syndrome.

SOURCES: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, news release, April 27, 2026; Journal of Clinical Oncology, April 27, 2026