DUARTE, Calif., August 10, 2010 — Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) offers a second chance at life for thousands of patients across the country every year — and at City of Hope, that second chance is second to none. Patients who underwent unrelated donor HCT at City of Hope have significantly better outcomes than expected under national standards, according to a recent report from the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP).
“City of Hope is the only transplant program in the country to receive an “above expectations” rating for five consecutive years,” said Auayporn P. Nadamanee, M.D., director of City of Hope’s Matched Unrelated Donor Program. “This is especially significant because City of Hope is also treating sicker patients, older patients and patients with less than perfect matched unrelated donors than most other large transplant programs in the country.”
Every year, the NMDP compares one-year overall survival rates among patients who receive unrelated HCT donations through its program. Its latest report includes an analysis of 125 transplant centers that performed at least one HCT from 2003 through the end of 2007. NMDP establishes a predicted survival rate for each center based on patients’ risk factors. The relative risk of a center’s patient population includes factors such as age, disease, disease stage and evaluation of specific genetic markers known as HLA matching. Risk level ranges from 1 (low risk) to 5 (high risk).
The national one-year survival rate among the nearly 9,700 patients transplanted in the U.S. was 56.3 percent. City of Hope’s actual survival rate was 64 percent, much higher than the 53 percent predicted survival rate for a medium-high risk patient population.
City of Hope is one of only 10 transplant centers in the report that performed more than 200 transplants annually, and only three of these centers, including City of Hope, performed above expectations. City of Hope’s patient population is rated at 4 (medium-high risk), while the other two centers are rated at 3 (medium risk).
Nadamanee attributes the program’s success to its team approach to treating patients, combining expertise from the Histocompatibility Laboratory, which tests for genetic matches to ensure the best outcome, search coordinators to seek potential donors and experienced nurses to help patients through the transplant process.
“Our excellent history of patient outcomes is a result of the great support system we have in place,” said Stephen J. Forman, M.D., the Francis and Kathleen McNamara Distinguished Chair in Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation. “Everyone works together – physicians, scientists, nurses, pharmacists, technicians, staff and outstanding unrelated-donor search coordinators who have expertise in the donor search process.”
City of Hope has performed more than 9,900 transplant procedures since 1976, when it achieved one of the first successful bone marrow transplants in the nation. For addititional information, NMDP’s profile of City of Hope is available online at www.marrow.org.
