A Randomized Phase II Study of Hyperbaric Oxygen in Improving Engraftment in Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cell Transplant

The UCB transplant is a type of stem cell transplant used to treat cancer of the blood or lymph glands. The UCB transplant has advantages over other types of transplants such as ease of obtaining the umbilical cord blood, absence of donor risks, reduced risks of contagious infections, and the availability for immediate use. The UCB transplant is also associated with a lower incidence of graft versus host disease, or GvHD (in GvHD, the transplanted graft attacks the recipient organs). However, UCB as a graft source for a bone marrow transplant has drawbacks related to the limited cell dose available for transplant and defects in homing. Homing is the process of UCB stem cell lodging in the bone marrow. If the homing is not efficient it could delay the re-population of the stem cells (or engraftment), possibly lead to engraftment failure, and delay the rebuilding of the immune system after transplant. This could, in turn, provide a higher risk to infection after the UCB transplant.