Pediatric Blood & Marrow Transplant
At CHRISTUS Health, we understand that undergoing a blood and marrow transplant is a challenging experience for both your child and your family. Our compassionate team of experts is here to support your family every step of the way, providing expert medical care as well as emotional and educational support for your child and your family throughout the process.
You are not alone in this journey. We are dedicated to helping your child with exceptional care that prioritizes their overall health and well-being.
Multidisciplinary Team Approach
Our team of blood and marrow specialists cross-collaborates with various departments to provide exceptional care for our patients. This collaborative approach ensures every child receives patient-focused care and comfort from our experienced physicians and support staff.
Access to Transplant Care
We provide seamless access to outpatient clinical care, laboratory, and diagnostic services. At some locations, we also offer inpatient care for our blood and marrow transplant patients. With CHRISTUS Health, you can trust that compassionate care will be at the forefront of every step of your child’s journey of hope and healing.
Cancer & Blood Disorders Clinic
CHRISTUS Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Clinic
CHRISTUS Children's Cancer & Blood Disorders Clinic in San Antonio provides patient-centered care for pediatric and young adult blood and bone marrow transplant patients. Our specialists provide exceptional care for inpatient or outpatient patients.
Types of Transplants
Autologous Transplant
An autologous transplant is a procedure where your child's own stem cells are collected and stored before they undergo high-dose chemotherapy or radiation. After the treatment, which aims to destroy cancer cells, the stored stem cells are returned to your child's body to help rebuild their bone marrow and restore blood cell production. This type of transplant is commonly used for treating conditions such as brain tumors, lymphomas, neuroblastoma, and certain autoimmune diseases. Using their own stem cells may reduce the risk of complications like graft-versus-host disease.
Allogeneic Transplant
An allogeneic transplant involves using stem cells from a donor to replace your child's damaged or diseased bone marrow. The donor can be a matched sibling, a matched unrelated donor, cord blood from newborns, or a mismatched related donor, such as a parent. This type of transplant is used for conditions like leukemia, bone marrow failures, sickle cell disease, thalassemia, storage diseases, and immunodeficiencies. The donor stem cells help create a new, healthy immune system in the patient
Conditions We Treat
We treat a variety of pediatric conditions which include:
- Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)
- Acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML)
- Chronic myeloblastic leukemia (CML)
- Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML)
- Lymphomas - Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin
- Neuroblastoma
- Brain Tumors
- Germ Cell Tumors
- Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH)
- Primary immunodeficiencies such as Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID)
- Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome
- Autoimmune disorders
- Sickle cell disease
- Thalassemia
- Bone marrow failures:
- Severe aplastic anemia
- Fanconi anemia
- Dyskeratosis congenita
- Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH)
- Diamond-Blackfan anemia
- Schwachmann-Diamond syndrome
- Congenital neutropenia
- Congenital amegakaryocytosis
- Storage diseases and other in-born errors of metabolism