THE CHERNOBYL GOVERNMENTAL PROGRAM - 2 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE AT THE BELARUSIAN-BONE-MARROW-TRANSPLANT-CENTER

The Bone Marrow Transplantation Program in Belarus was founded in 1992 , and in 1993, a Bone Marrow Transplantation Centre was created in Min sk From February 1994 to April 1996, 19 allogeneic hone marrow 16 auto logous bone marrow and 10 autologous peripheral blood stem cell transp lantations were performed. Reasons for transplantation included chroni c myeloid leukemia, multiple myeloma, severe aplastic anemia, acute my eloid leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, progressive myelofibrosi s, Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and neuroblastoma. Among the patients were two liquidators involved in the Chernobyl cleanup a ctivity, both of whom underwent allogeneic bone marrow transplantation . A variety of ablative preparative regimens were used, and blood prog enitor cells were mobilized by treatment with Cytoxan and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor. Therapy-related deaths resulted from graft- versus-host disease, septic shock, veno-occlusive disease bleeding and intestinal pulmonary fibrosis. Because the transplantation procedures were carried out on people who continued to be exposed to low-level i rradiation, the posttransplantation period included a conservative str ategy for prevention of graft-versus-host disease. There was nothing u nusual about the post-transplantation period, although uncertainty abo ut the continuing radiation dose should be taken into account when int erpreting these data.