Bone Marrow Transplant Program

The Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Program at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles is one of the largest and most highly regarded pediatric BMT programs in the world. The program is focused on the improvement of clinical care for children with a variety of serious immunologic, oncologic and genetic disorders. The physicians at CHLA are leaders in developing techniques to provide the benefits of bone marrow transplant to those children who lack a suitable family member to donate bone marrow. These methods include the use of matched unrelated donors, mismatched T-cell-depleted marrow transplants and autologous bone marrow transplants.

CHLA has extensive experience in dealing with the special needs of patients and families who come from outside the Southern California area, assisting them with transportation and housing arrangements. In addition, a Ronald McDonald House is located adjacent to the CHLA campus.

Program Elements

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles offers all types of transplants, as well as autologous bone marrow harvest, including:

  • Histocompatible marrow transplant from sibling donor

  • Histocompatible marrow transplant from related donor

  • 5/6 antigen-matched marrow transplant from sibling or related donor

  • 6/6 or 5/6 antigen-matched marrow transplant from unrelated donor

  • Haploidentical T cell depleted marrow transplant from related donor

  • 6/6 - 4/6 antigen-matched related/unrelated donor cord blood transplant

  • 6/6 - 5/6 antigen-matched allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell transplants from related and unrelated donors

  • Autologous purged/unpurged transplant

  • Autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplant

Major Accomplishments

The Bone Marrow Transplant Program is renowned for its many innovative research and clinical advances:

  • CHLA is one of the principal referral centers in the United States for children with severe combined immune deficiency (SCID or "bubble baby" syndrome). In the past several years, nearly 30 children with this otherwise fatal disorder have been referred to CHLA for a bone marrow transplant. With a matched sibling donor, CHLA's success rate for these patients is 100 percent; for children who lack a matched sibling, the success rate is 70 percent.

  • The overall survival for patients transplanted at CHLA is 90 percent at 100 days and 80 percent at one year (survival rates will differ for different types of transplants and for particular diseases).

  • CHLA broke new scientific ground in 1993 when it was the first hospital in the world to successful utilize gene therapy treatment for a newborn with severe combined immune deficiency.

  • Physicians at CHLA have pioneered the use of non-irradiation conditioning regimens for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), which can decrease long-term side effects such as cataracts, sterility and secondary cancers. For children with ALL who receive a transplant in second remission, the overall disease-free survival rate is 70 percent at three years.

  • For high-risk neuroblastoma patients (neuroblastoma is the most common solid tumor of infancy) who require an autologous bone marrow transplant, physicians at CHLA have developed a unique method of putting the harvested marrow through two cycles of immunolmagnetic purging before reinfusion. This technique, which has been utilized for over 300 patients, has shortened patients' average length of stay by 17 days and produced a 45 percent survival rate.

  • CHLA houses the national reference laboratory for biological and prognostic studies of neuroblastoma. Each year, the lab receives and analyzes over 200 tissue samples from hospitals around the country.

PHYSICIANS

Division of Research Immunology/Bone Marrow Transplant


HOW TO CONTACT US

The Bone Marrow Transplant Program welcomes your inquiries. To contact us you can:


E-mail us at

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Call the Division directly at
(323) 669-2546

Write to us at
Bone Marrow Transplant Program
Childrens Hospital Los Angeles
4650 Sunset Blvd., #62
Los Angeles, CA 90027-6062

Physicians who wish to contact a faculty member, consult about a patient or refer a patient can also call 1-800-ASK-PACE (1-800-275-7223). Please note, this service is for physicians ONLY.



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