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 Hospital over a ten year period. The source of stem cells was bone marrow (60), peripheral blood (3), or cord blood (6). The diseases treated included 35 thalassemias, 11 Burkitt's lymphoma, five non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, five aplastic anemia, eight acute leukemia, and one each of neuroblastoma, severe combined immunodeficiency, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, myelodysplastic syndrome, and pyruvate kinase deficiency. The success rate of stem cell transplantation in Thai children varied according to the underlying diseases of the patients, ranging from 50%, in acute leukemia to 100% in aplastic anemia. The outcome 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 low hen compared with that of Western countries. It is concluded that bone marrow, 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 hematologic and malignant disorders in children. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.