New ACCESS Trial Results Widen Donor Pool and Expand Patient Access to Transplant Among Adults with High-Risk Blood Cancers
Data published in Blood Advances show young, <7/8 mismatched unrelated donor one-year patient outcomes are similar to fully matched donors
New clinical trial results published today in the peer-reviewed journal Blood Advancesshow strong one-year outcomes for adult patients with blood cancers who received transplants with peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) grafts from young, more extensively mismatched unrelated donors (MMUDs), when combined with a post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PTCy) graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prevention strategy. Trial participants’ one-year overall survival rates exceeded 80% across all match levels, on par with those from fully matched donors.
Historically, blood stem cell transplants required an exact donor-patient match of eight human leukocyte antigen (HLA) markers, which areimmune system receptors on cell surfaces used to assess donor-recipient compatibility and prevent life-threatening GVHD. These new results highlight patient outcomes for those who received donor cells with fewer matching HLA markers (4/8–6/8), alongside those with more closely matched donors (7/8), suggesting that physicians can safely select donors from a substantially broader pool, increasing access for patients from non-European ancestries who historically may not have found a fully matched donor.
