390 American Society of Hematology Haploidentical Stem Cell Transplantation: The Always Present but Overlooked Donor

Haploidentical stem cell transplantation is a treatment option for the approximately 70 % of patients who do not have an HLA-identical sibling donor. The availabil-ity of a haploidentical donor in most families is a potential advantage, both for avoiding the need to find an alternative unrelated donor, and for the potentially more potent graft-versus-tumor effect that can be induced. The early complications of severe graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) following T-cell replete stem cell transplantation (SCT), and graft failure and recurrent malignancy (after T-cell depleted SCT) have limited the applications of this approach. Newer strategies employing T-cell depletion of the graft, using either very high-dose peripheral blood stem cells and/ or more intensive conditioning therapy have over