Milestone Celebrated:

Transplant Patients Age 50-Plus Part of 25,000 Served

In August, the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) celebrates a ground-breaking milestone of providing 25,000 patients with a second chance at life. The NMDP has made life-saving transplants possible for patients in need for more than 20 years. Now, clinical innovations and advances in support services are making transplant a treatment option for more patients with leukemia and other blood disorders. (See Advances in Transplant to learn more.)

Each year, thousands of people are diagnosed with life-threatening blood and immune system diseases, including leukemia and lymphoma. For many of these patients, a marrow or cord blood transplant is their only hope for a cure. Unfortunately, for patients over 50, the hope of a transplant was not always an option.

“Many of the diseases treated by transplant have higher incidence among older patients. However, transplant has not always been a clinical treatment option for these patients,” said Jeffrey W. Chell, M.D., chief executive officer of the NMDP. “Now, thanks to innovations in transplant, patients over 50 are the largest age group of patients receiving NMDP-facilitated transplants.”

Today, patients in their 50s, 60s and even 70s make up one-third of NMDP transplant recipients and have spurred rapid growth in use of the treatment. “Nearly 30 percent of all transplants facilitated by the NMDP are for patients in their 50s compared with only 6 percent in the mid-1990s,” said Chell.

Benefits
The benefits of innovation in transplant treatment are very real for a father of two teenagers in Texas, and a Maryland grandmother:

• Everett Lee was 57 when he learned he had acute myelogenous leukemia. Transplant offered his best hope for a cure. As a father of teenagers, Everett wanted to be there to help his daughters graduate from high school and succeed in the world. The NMDP helped Everett find a matched donor for his transplant. Today Everett is back at work, supporting his oldest daughter through college and his youngest complete high school.
  
  
• At age 59, Donna Butler was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone marrow disorder that most commonly affects older patients. Donna and her husband were told that a transplant through the NMDP was her best option for survival. Donna’s desire to watch her grandchildren grow helped her recover from her transplant and, now, Donna says she is looking forward to being able to dance at her grandchildren’s weddings.

Patients over the age of 50 present different clinical scenarios than younger patients. However, with appropriate decision-making in evaluation, treatment selection including use of new reduced-intensity preparative regimens, and supportive care, transplantation can be an effective option for older patients.

More information is available for patients older than 50 considering transplant through the NMDP Office of Patient Advocacy, including a kit of educational materials containing a DVD and two booklets that older patients can use to talk to their family and their doctor about treatment choices.