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Florida Blood and Marrow Transplantation Program earns national accreditation renewal
The Blood and Marrow Transplantation Program of Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus, Nemours Children’s Specialty Care, Jacksonville, and Wolfson Children’s Hospital has been awarded a three-year accreditation renewal through November 2019 by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy. The foundation awarded the accreditation renewal after a rigorous process of inspection of all collection, clinical and laboratory facilities at the three locations.
The joint program was created in 2001 to allow for greater collaboration in physician and staff expertise, research and clinical protocols among Mayo Clinic, Wolfson Children’s Hospital, and Nemours Children’s Specialty Care, Jacksonville. Patient referrals to the program come not only from physicians in Jacksonville, Florida, and across Florida and South Georgia, but from across the U.S. and internationally.
Since it was established, the combined program has transplanted more than 1,000 patients with a variety of illnesses including leukemia, neuroblastoma, bone marrow disorders, multiple myeloma, lymphoma, brain tumors, Ewing’s sarcoma, and amyloidosis. Stem cells for transplant may be obtained from the patients themselves (autologous) or from immediate family members, volunteer unrelated adult marrow donors or donated umbilical cord blood donor units.
The program shares a single cryopreservation laboratory at Mayo Clinic, where hematopoietic stem cells are frozen and processed. Mayo maintains the program’s adult Blood and Marrow Transplant Unit, and Wolfson Children’s Hospital maintains Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant beds on the Hematology/Oncology Unit in the J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Tower. The joint program shares information systems, quality, and other clinical and administrative staff.
Current medical directors for the program include Dr. Vivek Roy, overall program director and the medical director of the Adult Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at Mayo Clinic; Dr. Michael Joyce, medical director of the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Program, Nemours Children’s Specialty Care, Jacksonville; and Dr. Abba Zubair, medical director of the Adult Apheresis Program and the Cryopreservation Laboratory at Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus.