1st successfully treated patient with acute myeloid leukemia successfully treated using reduced intensity non-myeloablative stem cell transplantation
In early 1990, non-myeloablative stem cell transplantation (NST) or reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) in preparation for allogeneic stem cell transplantation, was introduced for the first time. The first successfully-treated patient was a young woman with acute myeloid leukemia. Treatment was uneventful and, following successful stem cell transplantation, the patient got married a month and a half following NST. She then gave birth to a healthy baby a year and a half later.
This was the first patient successfully treated by Slavin’s new “mini-transplant” procedure, professionally known as NST or RIC or non-myeloablative stem cell transplantation (NST). Normally, conventional transplantation destroys the ovaries, and young women usually develop early menopause and lose their fertility. This spectacularly successful outcome confirmed for the first time that the new transplant procedure developed by Prof. Slavin is indeed a user-friendly procedure, much safer than the conventional myeloablative transplant procedure used until that time for treatment of malignant hematologic malignancies.
The picture shows the baby of that young woman, born a year and a half after stem cell transplantation.
NST was pioneered by Prof. Slavin and his team at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. It has made it possible to cure patients with blood cancers and related hematological malignancies, as well as a long list of genetic and enzyme-deficiency disorders, including bone marrow deficiency disorders, minimizing treatment-related toxicity and mortality. This new approach for stem cell transplantation provided an option to cure patients that were not eligible for conventional myeloablative stem cell transplantation due to advanced disease, poor general condition or upper age limit. The procedure is now applied successfully all over the world.