SJH and Marshfield Clinic’s Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell Transplant Program Nationally Recognized
Experiencing a diagnosis of leukemia, multiple myeloma or other cancers can be a life changing event. For patients who have received this diagnosis one of the treatment options offered at Saint Joseph’s Hospital/Marshfield Clinic is to treat the cancer with high dose therapy and support bone marrow recovery with autologous (from self) progenitor cell transplant. Progenitor cell transplant is also known as stem cell or bone marrow transplant.
Bone marrow recovery is assisted with Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells (HPC) from the patient’s own body. High doses of chemotherapy with or without radiation therapy to the entire body can be used, and then the disease can be cured or kept in remission for a longer period of time. Using HPC after the high dose treatment for diseases such as leukemia, multiple myeloma, lymphoma, or testicular cancer helps the bone marrow recover from the treatment.
Although HPC transplant offers potential cure or improved survival for these diseases, the treatment process is complex and requires skilled and talented staff in the laboratory as well as on the nursing units.
Saint Joseph’s Hospital/Marshfield Clinic has received accreditation of the HPC transplant program from the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) and is one of a select group of cell transplant programs nationwide officially recognized for its overall excellence. FACT accreditation is only awarded to progenitor cell transplant programs that have demonstrated an outstanding level of patient care and medical and laboratory practices.
"We are pleased that our Cancer Center and its Progenitor Cell Transplant Program has again received FACT accreditation. It further acknowledges the outstanding quality of our program and provides patients with the confidence that they are receiving the best of care," said Richard Mercier, MD, the Medical Director for the Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell Transplant program at Saint Joseph’s Hospital/Marshfield Clinic.
The Marshfield program was the first in Wisconsin to receive accreditation (in 2000) and still remains one of three in the state and one of 124 programs in the U.S. and Canada. The Autologous Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell Transplantation Program at Saint Joseph’s Hospital/Marshfield Clinic is an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group approved Transplant Center which means it can participate in clinical trials that use HPC transplant for the treatment of cancer.
In April 2008, the center again met the criteria for accreditation by the American Association of Blood Banks for Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell collection and processing.
The program is also a participating team with the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry. The Autologous Bone Marrow Transplant Program began in 1982 and in 1991 the Autologous Peripheral Blood Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell program was added.
Founded in 1996, FACT establishes standards for high quality patient care, medical and laboratory practice. It is a non-profit organization developed by the International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT) and the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT) for the purposes of voluntary inspection and accreditation in the field of hematopoietic cell therapy (bone marrow transplant).