The Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Program is nationally and internationally recognized as a leader in both established techniques and research initiatives.

 

Under the direction of Joanne Kurtzberg, M.D., the program has performed over 1,400 autologous and allogeneic transplants in children with cancer or genetic diseases since 1990.

 

 Using a variety of approaches, the program has pioneered the use of unrelated donor umbilical cord blood stem cells in patients who do not have a fully matched donor, thus extending this life-saving therapy to many more patients. The cord blood program allows for rapid identification of unrelated donors quickly (generally within a few weeks), a critical concern for patients with inborn errors of metabolism, bone marrow failure, immunodeficiency syndromes, or advanced leukemias.

The program provides hematopoietic stem cell transplant as a treatment option for a variety of acquired and congenital disorders of children and young adults including hematopoietic malignancies and solid tumors including neuroblastoma and brain tumors, inherited immune deficiency syndromes, bone marrow failure syndromes, hemoglobinopathies, and inherited metabolic diseases.

 

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