For the fifth year in a row, Cedars-Sinai cancer patients receiving donor stem cell transplants to treat blood and bone marrow cancer such as acute leukemia experienced better one-year survival rates than those treated at most other U.S. transplant centers.

The Blood and Marrow Transplant Program in the Division of Hematology and Cellular Therapy at Cedars-Sinai Cancer was one of just 12 among 172 adult transplant programs where patient survival one year after transplant exceeded expectations, according to 2024 rankings from the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. The survival rate at Cedars-Sinai was 90%, which far exceeded the expected survival outcome of 68%-83%.

One important change, Paquette said, was routine use of the chemotherapy drug cyclophosphamide after each transplant. This helps prevent graft-versus-host disease, which causes the patient’s immune system to attack the recipient’s organs.

These refinements have included an adjustment to the therapies used to prepare a patient for transplantation, which is called a conditioning regimen. The therapies in the conditioning regimen kill the cancer cells in the patient’s body, make room in the patient’s bone marrow for the transplanted stem cells to grow, and help prevent the patient’s immune system from attacking the new cells.

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