Dell Children’s Medical Center in Central Austin has become the first pediatric hospital to provide bone marrow transplants, also known as stem cell transplants, in Central Texas.
The advanced procedure increases the cure rate for pediatric cancer patients, Dell Children’s doctors told Community Impact. The hospital’s new stem cell transplant program means Austin-area families no longer have to leave Central Texas to receive lifesaving cancer care, said Dr. Amir Mian, the program’s medical director and division chief for pediatric oncology and hematology for Dell Children’s.
“Previously, everybody had to travel out of town, and what it meant was leaving home for more than a month, sometimes even longer,” Mian said. “Now they don’t have to ... nobody has to leave town just to get lifesaving treatment.”
How it works
The transplant involves removing a patient's bone marrow and replacing older, damaged stem cells by administering new, healthy stem cells to pediatric cancer patients through an IV, Mian said. Stem cells form blood and immune cells and are found in bone marrow.
These new stem cells travel to the patient’s bone marrow and begin producing healthy blood cells that may restore their immune system and eliminate the underlying cancer, he said.
The treatment is administered when a patient’s cancer or cancer treatment damages or destroys their bone marrow. Many patients with solid tumors or cancers of the blood, such as lymphoma and neuroblastoma, must receive high doses of chemotherapy, which can destroy bone marrow and healthy stem cells while killing the cancer, Mian said.
Receiving the new stem cells after chemotherapy allows the patient to recover and increases their chance of being cured from cancer, said Dr. Shannon Cohn, pediatric oncologist and stem cell transplant physician.
Doctors may harvest and preserve a patient's healthy stem cells before they undergo chemotherapy. Patients may also receive a stem cell transplant from a donor if their immune system needs to be reset or they have a high chance of relapsing, said Kelsey Liburd, Dell Children's stem cell nurse practitioner.
“Giving the stem cells allows us to give really high-dose chemo and then give the stem cells to rescue them," Liburd said. “Then, those new healthy cells regenerate.”
Pediatric cancer patients undergo chemotherapy or standard treatments for three to six months before receiving a stem cell transplant, Cohn said. The hospital’s comprehensive cancer care involves support from every sector of the hospital through social workers, nurses, educators, therapists, pharmacists, child life specialists and nutritionists, Mian said.
“Our goal is to bring the highest quality clinical care in a multidisciplinary manner to patients at their doorstep so they don't have to leave home to receive care somewhere else,” Mian said.
