Use of stem cells from mismatched related donors.

Mismatched haploidentical bone marrow transplantations from a related donor have been the topic of clinical and laboratory research for more than 20 years. During that time, new treatment strategies have been designed based on animal experiments, and, since our group introduced the megadose inoculum which combines T-cell-depleted bone marrow cells with a large number of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor-mobilized peripheral blood stem cells and a more intensive conditioning regimen, have done much to overcome the problems of graft-versus-host disease and graft rejection. As most patients have a full haplotype mismatched relative available, this technique means that a far greater number of patients with hematologic malignancies can be offered a T-cell-depleted transplantation as curative therapy.