Summary:vious data had suggested that umbilical cord blood would serve as an excellent source of hematopoietic stem cells. 3 As the use of UCBSC transplants continues to develop Umbilical cord blood stem cells (UCBSC) were used to reconstitute hematopoiesis following myeloablative thermany questions still remain unanswered about cord blood as a source of stem cells. Umbilical cord blood has many apy in a 13-month-old infant with acute nonlymphocytic leukemia (ANLL):FAB-M5 who had failed to sustain a potential advantages over other stem cell sources, including a large, accessible donor population, ease and safety of colchemotherapeutic remission. The patient's mother was 18 weeks pregnant with her second child at the time lection, decreased incidence of infectious contamination and a decreased risk of GVHD. 4 of diagnosis. Amniocentesis revealed that the fetus was HLA-haploidentical with the patient at the paternallyThe morbidity and mortality of allogeneic BMT is highly dependent upon the HLA compatibility of the donor and inherited allele. The umbilical cord blood was harvested and processed by Ficoll centrifugation with 100% recovthe recipient as it influences the occurrence of GVHD. 5 Increasing the HLA disparity escalates the risk of ery of 5 ؋ 10 7 mononuclear cells/kg and then cryopreserved. Two weeks after collection the cells were thawed developing acute GVHD. The majority of the UCBSCtransplanted patients reported to date have been reconstiand then infused into the patient following conditioning with total body irradiation, cyclophosphamide, and etotuted from HLA-identical donors with minimal information on patients transplanted from donors with a three antigen poside. Graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD) prophylaxis consisted of cyclosporine and methotrexate. The patient mismatch. Previous reports have cited a lower incidence of both the occurrence and severity of GVHD in UCBSC experienced clinical grade I GVHD consisting of skin involvement only that resolved within 2 weeks following transplants. 1,[6][7][8][9] If this is indeed the case then it would suggest that umbilical cord blood stem cells with a greater the addition of corticosteroids. Engraftment was achieved with an absolute neutrophil count (ANC) above HLA-mismatch could be used with acceptable morbidity. There are a number of methods that have been used in 0.5 ؋ 10 9 /l on day 16, a platelet count above 50 ؋ 10 9 /1 on day 56, platelet transfusion independence on day 32 the collection and preparation of UCBSC. 1,[10][11][12][13][14] The ideal method for collection, processing, manipulation and storage and red blood cell transfusion independence after day 44. Three months following transplantation restriction is still to be determined. Most sources have warned that the manipulation of cord blood results in a significant fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) revealed no discernible difference between the donor and the recipidepletion of stem cells and should be not be attempted. 2,3,5,10,11 The following case illustrates the sucent. The patien...