Pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in Serbia - 25 years of experience

Abstract

The first allogeneic identical sibling donor hematopoietic stem cell transplantation at the Institute for Mother and Child Health Care of Serbia ?Dr. Vukan Cupic? (Institute) was performed in the seventies of the last century. Almost twenty years later, the first allogeneic transplant from sibling haploidentical donor was performed in an infant suffering from severe combined immunodeficiency. After several years of efforts, the bone marrow transplant unit was opened in April 1997 at the Institute. Over the 25 years, the transplant team performed 360 hematopoietic stem cell transplantations, 175 autologous and 185 allogeneic (103 from identical sibling donor, 43 from haploidentical sibling donor, 36 from matched unrelated donor, 2 from identical sibling cord blood and 1 from unrelated identical cord blood).