August 27, 1999

MGH researchers reported this week the first successful use of a combined kidney and bone marrow transplant to treat a patient for both cancer of the bone marrow and related kidney failure. In an article in the journal Transplantation, the team led by Thomas Spitzer, MD, director of the MGH Bone Marrow Transplant unit, describes how the procedure both treated the patient's multiple myeloma, which remains in remission almost a year later, and allowed her body to accept the transplanted organ without immunosuppressive drugs.

The accomplishment was based on research from the MGH Transplantation Biology Research Center, directed by David Sachs, MD, and may someday lead to broader use of bone marrow transplants to induce tolerance in organ recipients. More information on this study and its implications will appear in the next issue of Research Perspectives, a Hotline supplement, which will be published next month.