I asked Dr. Burt yesterday and he said it was a good question. It didn't seem like something he considered since banking cords is so recent the only patients who would have the option would be too young for the transplant anyway.
Using your own banked cord would eliminate the body recognizing the infused stem cells as foreign, but you would run into the problems that 1 cord doesn't always yield enough stem cells for the transplant, and the stem cells would be coming from your own immune system, the predecessor of a Crohn's developing immune system. Although the stem cells would be much younger and better than an autologous transplant, it still might not be ideal in that the relapse rate might not be any better than an autologous transplant since it would still be from your immune system. It seems to be somewhat of a risk:reward situation in that donor stem cells that come from a healthy immune system would give you the best chance at the new immune system being healthier and less prone to relapse than before, but carry the small risk of graft rejection and GvHD. The impression I get from Dr. Burt is that the risks of either of those occurring, and them being severe, are really, really low, so the potential benefits with donor stem cells far outweigh the potential disadvantages.
I'm not sure how well I explained that so let me know if it I should clarify anything.
