Autoimmune conditions
Crohn disease
Also called: CD · Crohn ileitis · Crohn colitis · fistulizing Crohn disease · Crohn's disease · Regional enteritis · Granulomatous enteritis
What a donor has to do with this
A transplant is not a standard part of treating this condition. It is used rarely, in particular situations, and most people diagnosed with it will not have one.
This is our reading of published transplant guidelines for this condition, not a measurement of how many people need a donor. Where a source actually counted donors, the figure and the people it counted are shown further down. Where none did, we say so rather than estimate.
What the evidence says
- Who it affects
- The UK NHS Crohn-disease profile reviewed in 2025 reports that symptoms most commonly begin in teenagers and younger adults, although the disease can occur at any age.
- Treatments other than a transplant
- Corticosteroids for induction; conventional immunomodulators such as thiopurines or methotrexate in selected settings.; Biologic and targeted therapies include infliximab/adalimumab, vedolizumab, ustekinumab, risankizumab, and upadacitinib, selected by phenotype and region.; Endoscopic management, nutrition, and surgery remain alternatives; surgery may be unacceptable when it would cause short bowel or permanent stoma.
- If a transplant is used, the cells come from
- autologous mobilized peripheral-blood stem cells (dominant contemporary source); usually unmanipulated autologous peripheral-blood grafts; CD34 selection has also been used; bone marrow: not reported in the opened disease-specific sources; cord blood: not reported in the opened disease-specific sources
- How often the donor was unrelated
- Not reported. No source we could read states this for this condition, so we do not give a number. An estimate here would be a guess dressed as evidence.
Where this gets complicated
The ASTIC randomized trial missed a stringent primary composite endpoint, whereas pooled/long-term and registry analyses found substantial responses; relapse is common.; Some relapsing patients regain sensitivity to therapies that failed before HCT, so HCT may reset treatment responsiveness rather than permanently cure Crohn disease.; A later conditioning trial was stopped for unexpected severe toxicity, reinforcing the need for protocol- and centre-specific caution.
We are not asking you to register on this page
An unrelated donor is not a usual part of treating this condition, so it would be dishonest to use this page to ask you to register. Other conditions in the library are a different story.
Related conditions
Others in autoimmune conditions. They are genuinely different diseases with different treatments — the group name is not a diagnosis.
Where this came from
- Autoimmune Disease — EBMT Handbook / Springer via NCBI Bookshelf, 2024-04-11
- Indications for haematopoietic cell transplantation and CAR-T for haematological diseases, solid tumours and immune disorders: 2025 EBMT practice recommendations — Bone Marrow Transplantation / EBMT, 2025-09-09
- ECCO Guidelines on Therapeutics in Crohn's Disease: Medical Treatment — Journal of Crohn's and Colitis / ECCO, 2024-10-15
- Autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation in severe Crohn's disease: a review on behalf of ECCO and EBMT — Journal of Crohn's and Colitis / ECCO and EBMT, 2018
- Crohn's disease — NHS, reviewed 2025-04-14