Since 1992, Children's Memorial's Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant Program has performed more than 875 stem cell transplants. Seeing more than 70% of the pediatric stem cell transplant cases in the Chicago metro area, it is one of the nation’s largest pediatric programs.
And the program's outcomes are excellent: In 2008, our medical and surgical complication rates for stem cell transplants were 57% and 17% less than the regional or national averages, respectively.
As the first freestanding pediatric program to earn accreditation from the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy, the program is recognized for its quality, outcomes, multidisciplinary approach to care, research and laboratory expertise.
Accredited by the National Marrow Donor Program and providing data to the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research, Children's Memorial also offers one of the nation's largest pediatric outpatient programs.
Types of transplant
The center performs two basic types of stem cell transplant.
- Autologous transplant, when a child's own stem cells are removed, treated with anticancer drugs or radiation, then returned to the patient. Autologous transplants are performed for the treatment of neuroblastoma, Wilm's Tumor, Hodgkins Disease and othe rare solid tumors.
- Allogeneic transplant, a procedure in which the child receives stem cells from a compatible donor — related and unrelated. Allogeneic transplants are performed for the treatment of leukemia, bone marrow failure syndromes, hemoglobinopathies, metabolic diseases and severe immune deficiencies.
Stem cell sources
Learn more here about
a clinical trial studying
an alternative to matched stem cell transplantation.
The cells used in transplants can come from three different sources:
- Umbilical cord blood, collected from the cord blood and placenta after a baby is born.
- Bone marrow, collected in the operating room while the donor is asleep (under general anesthesia).
- Peripheral blood stem cells, collected through a procedure called stem cell apheresis. The donor's blood is removed and run through an apheresis machine that selects out the stem cells. The rest of the donor's blood is returned to them.
Decreasing short- and long-term toxicities
One program focus is to decrease the short- and long-term toxicities (that can accompany a traditional, full-intensity transplant) by developing reduced intensity and reduced toxicity protocols. More than 100 reduced intensity transplants have been performed since the program began, many on an outpatient basis. In addition:
- The Pediatric Apheresis Program offers collection of cells and extra-corporeal photopheresis for the prevention and treatment of acute and chronic graft-vs.-host disease.
- The comprehensive Chronic Graft vs. Host Disease Program delivers comprehensive, multidisciplinary care to patients with this complication after allogeneic stem cell transplantation.
- The STAR Program (Survivors Taking Action & Responsibility) provides patients a seamless transition from pediatric to adult long-term survivor transplant care.
- The Severe Immunodeficiency Program focuses on early diagnosis to maximize the changes of good clinical outcomes. The stem cell transplantation team has extensive experience treating children and infants with severe immunodeficiency, and has recently been named a Jeffrey Modell Diagnostic and Research Center.
Leadership
Morris Kletzel, MD, heads the programs in hematology, oncology and stem cell transplant, a component of Children's Memorial's
Siragusa Transplantation Center. As a professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and an expert in
neuroblastoma and stem cell transplantation, Dr. Kletzel and his pediatric-based research efforts have helped make this program one of the strongest in the United States today.
Affiliations
Supporting laboratories
- A state-of-the-art HLA typing laboratory, capable of typing at the molecular level.
- A chimerism laboratory capable of performing sub-set chimerism to determine engraftment.
- A stem cell processing laboratory at Northwestern Memorial Hospital with a good manufacturing practice facility.
To learn more
To learn more, email us SiragusaTransplantWeb@childrensmemorial.org.
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