7 June 2012

Bone Marrow Transplant Milestone

Today is a big day for the Waikato Hospital Haematology Department and equally big for consultant haematologist Dr Humphrey Pullon who established the transplant service there 20 years ago.

The first autologous bone marrow transplant was carried out at Waikato Hospital on 25 June 1992 and was today celebrated with a patient afternoon tea, which about 120 transplant recipients attended.

By the end of the month we will have performed 317 transplants in 301 patients over the past 20 years, said Dr Pullon.

The first patient went down to Wellington to have her stem cells collected and they were then driven back up to be stored here She is still alive, but was unable to attend today.

We did the stem cell collection of the second patient, who is sadly no longer alive, and our third patient was cured of Lymphoma as a result of his transplant.

The third patient was Lloyd Given of Tauranga who attended todays afternoon tea.

I would like to extend my thanks to Waikato Hospital, Humphrey and the oncologist at the time, Grant Trotter, he said.

The autologous bone marrow transplant process is a long and involved one.The cancer patient is treated and goes into remission or gets to a point where the cancer is well controlled.

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Bone Marrow Transplant Milestone