Preimplantation diagnosis: efficient tool for human leukocyte antigen matched bone marrow transplantation for thalassemia

Thalassemia is among the most frequent indications for preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to allow at risk couples reproducing without fear of having an affected child. In addition, those already having the affected child, have also the option to produce an unaffected offspring that may be also a complete human leukocyte antigen (HLA) match to affected child to ensure successful bone marrow transplantation. We present here the results of retrospective analysis of 293 PGD cycles for thalassemia, including 144cases of simultaneous HLA typing, resulting in birth of 70 thalassemia- free children and 12 unaffected HLA matched ones, providing their cord blood and/or bone marrow for transplantation treatment of their affected siblings. The present overall experience includes successful cord blood or bone marrow transplantation in more than three dozens of cases with HLA matched stem cells obtained from children born after PGD, demonstrating that PGD is an efficient approach for improving success of bone marrow transplantation treatment for thalassemia.