Strategies for prenatal hla typing for cord blood stem cell donor selection

Cord blood stem cells are being used increasingly more often for therapeutic stem cell transplant for sibling patients with leukemia or anemia or to cure or treat various congenital diseases. Our laboratory has performed prenatal HLA typing for more than 100 potential cord blood donors during the last few years. Having advanced knowledge of the fetus' HLA type allows planning for cord blood stem cell harvest or allows earlier utilization of alternative therapies for affected patients. If an affected f.eC.u,g is determined not to have a suitable family donor, a search can be initiated to identify a suitable unrelated banked cord blood or bone marrow stem cell donor before birth. Strategies and methods used for both class I and class II prenatal HLA typing have evolved over the last few years. These methods and the results obtained to date will be described in the presentation. The successful application of these procedures should serve to encourage their more frequent use as an alternative to waiting for postnatal HLA typing.