Objective(s): High-risk neuroblastoma is a childhood cancer with poorprognosis despite modern multimodality therapy. Internal radiotherapy using131I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) is effective for treating the disease even if it isresistant to chemotherapy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the safety and efficacyof 131I-MIBG radiotherapy combined with myeloablative high-dose chemotherapyand...

Donor lymphocyte infusion (DLI) can restore durable molecular remission in a high percentage of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) who have relapses after allogeneic stem cell transplantation, but for patients who do not respond survival is poor. Imatinib mesylate (STI571) is a specific inhibitor of BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase that can induce hematologic and cytogenetic remissions in pati...

High-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation has been explored as a method to enhance the efficacy of chemotherapy for advanced solid tumors. The failure of autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation to prolong survival in patients with metastatic solid tumors has sparked interest recently in studies exploring the potential of allogeneic hematopo...

Umbilical cord blood is an alternative hematopoietic stem cell source for patients with hematologic diseases who can be cured by allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Initially, umbilical cord blood transplantation was limited to children, given the low cell dose infused. Both related and unrelated cord blood transplants have been performed with high rates of success for a variety of h...

Allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) from an HLA-haploidentical relative provides a potentially curative treatment option for hematologic malignancies patients who lack a suitably HLA-matched donor. The greatest challenge to performing HLA-haploidentical SCT has been high rates of graft failure and severe graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Our group has been exploring high dose, post-trans...

We present a case of 63-year-old hematologic patient with pulmonary vaso-invasive zygomycosis Rhizomucor pusillus after second stem cell transplantation (SCT) for myelodysplastic syndrome, complicated by multi organ failure, myocardial ischemia and infarction. Zygomycosis is common in immunocompromised patients, especially hematopoietic (HSCT). Mucor species have devastating properties causing ...

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is an established treatment modality for malignant and nonmalignant hematologic diseases. Acute and chronic graft-versus-host diseases (GVHDs) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. T cells have been identified as key players in the graft-versus-host reaction and, therefore, most established dru...

The introduction and evolution of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) could be traced back to 1950s, to the studies on interactions among irradiation, covering spleen and bone marrow from it and injection of bone marrow cells. Today, HSCT is considered a well-established, effective and promising means of therapy for various malignant and non-malignant medical conditions, both in chil...

Simultaneous cardiac and renal involvement is associated with a particularly poor prognosis in patients with AL amyloidosis (AL-A). We report the first case of a successful long-term outcome of combined heart and kidney transplantation not followed by autologous stem cell transplantation in a patient with systemic AL-A. The recipient was a 46-year-old man with end-stage renal failure associated...