The Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplantation Service is an international leader, attracting patients from around the world, and is renowned for mismatched and unrelated transplants in children.  Hopkins experts perform bone marrow transplants (BMT) for solid tumors such as neuroblastoma, Wilm's tumor, retinoblastoma, Ewing's sarcoma and hepatoblastoma, and hematologic malignancies, as well as for the range of nonmalignant diseases of cells derived from the stem cell. 

The ability to isolate stem cells, the cells in the bone marrow that give rise to all blood cells, was made possible through a discovery made by pediatric oncology researchers at Johns Hopkins.  This new technology has improved the success of BMT and reduced both recovery time and potentially fatal complications, such as bleeding and infection.

The oncologists have also developed multiple approaches for autologous (self-donated marrow) and allogeneic (donor marrow) BMT, including non-total body irradiation preparative regimens, CD34+ stem cell purification for resistant pediatric solid tumors, and CD34+ cell purification for T cell depletion in allogeneic BMT.   New approaches for treating patients with nonmalignant conditions as well as cancer are currently being tested. 

Pediatric BMT patients have access to the same services provided in the adult program, including the Graft Engineering Laboratory and the Graft vs. Host Disease Clinic.

Johns Hopkins established a new Pediatric Oncology Outpatient-Inpatient (POPIN) unit, enabling some pediatric BMT patients to leave the hospital and spend most of their treatment period in a more home-like setting.