A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine reports that advances in stem cell transplantation have resulted in reduced rates of treatment-related complications and overall mortality. The study looked at more than 2,500 patients who underwent transplantation from 1993 through 1997 and then compared those outcomes to patients treated from 2003 through 2007.

According to the researchers, the improved survival outcomes appear to be related to reductions in organ damage, infection and severe acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Better drugs for GVHD, less toxic conditioning regimens, and the peripheral blood becoming the primary cell source over bone marrow are all factors that the authors believe contributed to these improvements.

An editorial that appears in the same issue indicates that progress in transplantation for hematologic cancers has been "remarkable" over the past 40 years and that "Research on transplantation with the use of umbilical cord blood or cellular therapy without long-term engraftment is underway in attempts to improve overall outcomes."