Biol Blood Marrow Transplant. 2017 Feb 15. pii: S1083-8791(17)30279-3. doi: 10.1016/j.bbmt.2017.02.010. [Epub ahead of print]

The Impact of Delayed Infusion Time in Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation.

Mitchell R¹, Wagner JE², Brunstein C³, Cao Q⁴, McKenna DH⁵, Verneris MR⁶.

Abstract

In umbilical cord blood (UCB) transplantation, UCB units are typically thawed, washed and infused into the patient as rapidly as possible. In some instances, there is a delay in the time from the unit thaw/wash procedure to infusion into the patient. Therefore, we examined the effect of thaw duration time on engraftment outcomes in 567 patients undergoing UCB transplantation. With a range of 32 to 523 minutes, a prolonged thaw duration had no obvious effect on the incidence of neutrophil engraftment or time to recovery. This was true for recipients of single UCB transplantation (incidence 97% vs 93%, p = 0.13; time to neutrophil recovery 21 days vs 21 days, p = 0.32; and platelet recovery 79% vs 78%, p = 0.48) and similar results were observed in double UCB transplantation (time to neutrophil engraftment 20 vs 19 days, p = 0.71). However, there was a trend towards better platelet recovery in recipients of dUCB transplants with prolonged thaw duration (HR 1.28, p = 0.06). In conclusion, this study demonstrates prolonged thaw duration has no detrimental effect on engraftment after single or double UCB transplantation.