Bone marrow, peripheral blood and cord blood stem cell transplantation in children: Ten years' experience at Siriraj Hospital

Stem cell transplantations were performed in 69 children at Siriraj Hospita l over a ten year period. The source of stem cells was bone marrow (60), pe ripheral blood (3), or cord blood (6). The diseases treated included 35 tha lassemias, 11 Burkitt's lymphoma, five non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, five aplasti c anemia, eight acute leukemia, and one each of neuroblastoma, severe combi ned immunodeficiency, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, myelodysplastic syndrome, a nd pyruvate kinase deficiency. The success rate of stem cell transplantatio n in Thai children varied according to the underlying diseases of the patie nts, ranging from 50%, in acute leukemia to 100% in aplastic anemia. The ou tcome of stem cell transplantation in 35 thalassemic children revealed 23 ( 79.4%) were cured, whereas three (10.3%) remain alive with disease and the other three (10.3%) died. The incidence of graft-versus-host disease was lo w hen compared with that of Western countries. It is concluded that bone ma rrow, peripheral blood and cord blood stem cell transplantation will be the treatment of choice and will be widely used in the future to cure many hem atologic and malignant disorders in children. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ire land Ltd. All rights reserved.