The experience of bone marrow transplantation at Riyadh armed forces hospital

This is a report about the program of bone marrow transplantation (BMT), which was established in 1989 at the Armed Forces Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We follow the strict international protocol of pre transplant assessment of the donor and the recipient, BMT conditioning by Cyclosphosphamide and Basulphan or body irradiation, BM harvest and processing, graft versus host disease prophylaxis by cyclosporin and methotrexate, and post-transplant care. Since the start of the BMT programme at the Armed Forces Hospitals in Riyadh in May 1989 and until the end of March 1996, fifty nine allogeneic and one autologous transplants have been performed. Chronic myelocytic and acute myeloid leukemia were the principal indications for BMT in our institute. The acturial five years survival of BMT in these two conditions was 67% and 47% respectively. Besides allografting, we finished the preparations for autologus BMT and peripheral blood stem cells transplantation, which may be used for treating patients with solid tumors and leukemias who are not suitable for allogenic transplantation due to older age or donor unavailability.