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1 Sep 2005 - News from the National Bone Marrow Transplant Unit

News from the National Bone Marrow Transplant Unit This has been another successful year for the National Bone Marrow Transplant Programme, with almost 100 transplant treatments carried out in our Denis Burkitt Unit. As always, we are indebted to our multi-disciplinary team, and in particular our excellent ward nurses, specialist nurses, and nurse managers, for the outstanding care provided to our patients. Our new Day Ward has been an enormous improvement, in terms of the facilities and care now available to outpatients preparing for and recovering from transplants. It has been a priority of the Unit since its establishment to provide the highest quality care, and to verify this. Therefore, we were delighted with the results of the detailed audit carried out by the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry, which assessed the validity of our reported results, confirming that they are comparable with best international standards. This is a great reassurance to patients and staff alike. Research is a critical component of our programme, as it allows us to bring forward new treatment options for our patients at the earliest stage. The Unit continues to participate in important clinical trials of new medicines for leukaemia, myeloma, lymphoma and related disorders, and to introduce new techniques, which hopefully will improve the experience of transplantation for our patients. The support of the Trust for the Research Fellowship has been crucial in this regard. Our first 2 Research Fellows have now completed important scientific work, which has been presented in international forums. Despite our achievements to date, we still need the support of the Trust for key future developments in our services to patients. We are committed to improving the quality and type of accommodation available to patients and families receiving transplants and related leukaemia treatments, and are working with the hospital to advance this project as quickly as possible. Professor McCann continues to develop our newly commissioned stem cell laboratory, a state-of-the-art facility in the National Blood Centre, which allows us to provide the best quality bone marrow and stem cell products in accordance with the latest international standards and requirements. We are now working closely with the Irish Medicines Board to complete the requirements under new EU Law for our full licence. My colleagues and I deeply appreciate the support and sponsorship this event has received. We would like to thank Dr. Paul Browne, Director, National Adult BMT Programme Back to news index