Reunion celebrates transplant success

Every summer since 1989, hundreds of bone marrow transplant patients and their families have gathered at Stanford to share their stories and celebrate their successes. The year’s event, which will also commemorate the 15th anniversary of Stanford’s BMT program, will be held at the medical school on the dean’s lawn Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

More than 1,000 people, including the first BMT patient, are expected to attend this year’s reunion.

During the event, which program director Robert Negrin, MD, has called his favorite medical center tradition, patients get the chance to meet with other survivors and reunite with those who treated them. Patients 10 years out or more will be introduced during a brief ceremony, and Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, will give the keynote address. Attendees this year will also get T-shirts commemorating the program’s anniversary.

Around 200 BMTs are performed annually at Stanford, and the 3,000th transplant is expected later this year. The first successful transplant was performed on a young boy here 16 years ago; one year later, Karl Blume, MD, a renowned BMT specialist from Los Angeles, was recruited to Stanford to start its adult BMT program.