title: Transplantation activities and treatment strategies in paediatric stem cell transplantation centres: a report from the EBMT Working Party on Paediatric Diseases. European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation.
abstract: To determine the current approach to stem cell transplantation (SCT) in centres which treat predominantly paediatric patients, a questionnaire was sent to 67 centres known by the EBMT registry to perform SCT mainly in children. Fifty-five centres from 19 countries responded. Forty centres (75%) started their transplantation activities between 1980 and 1992. Median number of transplants/centre was 95 (range 8-400). Median number of transplants/centre/year was 18 (range 5-85). On average, there was one physician responsible for seven SCT/year while one nurse was involved for a median of 1.7 SCT/year. Median four rooms/centre (range 1-17) were available for paediatric SCT. The most common isolation facilities were rooms with high efficiency particulate air filtration (HEPA). Eighty-two percent (45/55) of the centres performed allogeneic as well as autologous SCT, while 5% (three centres) offered exclusively allogeneic SCT and 13% (seven centres) used only autologous stem cell rescue. Stem cell source for allogeneic SCT was bone marrow in 87%, peripheral blood (PB) in 10% and umbilical cord blood in 3%. Donors were HLA matched related in 57%, mismatched related in 13%, and matched unrelated in 30% of allogeneic SCT. PB was the most commonly used stem cell source for autologous SCT (48%), followed by BM (41%) and the two together (11%). Data analysis revealed substantial differences in protective care, stem cell processing and transplantation procedures within the centres, irrespective of the country, centre size and transplant type.
authors.affiliation: St Anna Children's Hospital, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ladenstein
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Minkov
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Pötschger
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gadner
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cornish
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dini
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Klingebiel
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Locatelli
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vossen
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Niethammer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019650:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Mobilization; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous