The first pediatric
stem cell
transplantation at
University Hospital "St. Marina" - Varna has already become a fact
. On 13th
February,
at the
Transplant Center of the
Clinic for Pe
diatric H
ematology and O
ncology,
a team of
specialists,
headed
by Prof. Igor Resnick
,
performed autologous transplantation in a
6-year-old girl with neuroblastoma (intra-abdominal
malignancy). The child has
already been
discharged from hospital in
stable clinical status
.Over the last years
transplantation of bone marrow and peripheral stem cells has been used as a
routine treatment method in a number of hematology and oncology diseases in
adults and infants. Moreover, the method
is getting widely used as an unconventional therapeutic option in solid tumors
in children. Experts explain
that stem cell transplants can be autologous and allogeneic, and the choice
depends on the child's age and type of primary disease. In autologous
transplants t
he donor is the patient himself or herself, while in allogeneic ones the donor
is a healthy person.In our country pediatric stem
cell transplantations were performed only at one medical institution in Sofia,
due to which young patients had to be directed to international centers. Thanks
to the establishment of the new pediatric transplant center at Varna University
Hospital, hematology and oncology sick children in Bulgaria will receive
treatment in our country.
