Blood and Marrow Transplant State of the Science Symposium

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal seeks support for the organization of a "State of the Science" Symposium in Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (HCT) to be held in Ann Arbor, Michigan on June 26-27, 2007. Thousands of HCTs are performed to treat malignant and non-malignant diseases each year. Current estimates of annual numbers of HCTs are about 45,000 worldwide, with 15-20,000 annually in the United States. Reasons for increasing use include proven and potential efficacy in many diseases, better understanding of appropriate timing and patient selection, greater availability of donors and better techniques for determining HLA match, greater ease of stem cell collection, and improved supportive care. Despite these improvements, application of HCT is still limited by relatively high risks of morbidity and mortality and, in the case of allogeneic HCT, availability of suitable donors. In 2001, The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) jointly established a Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMT CTN). The network's overarching goal is to conduct clinical trials that will definitively answer key questions in current HCT medical practice that can improve patient outcomes by assessing novel HCT methods and management strategies in a multi-center setting. The purpose of this symposium is to identify the most compelling clinical research opportunities that can be initiated in the next five years by the BMT CTN, and to disseminate its conclusions among the BMT and Hematology scientific communities. The recommendations of the first symposium, held in 2000, guided the scientific agenda of the BMT CTN during its first five years, and we expect the second symposium's recommendations to be equally important. The BMT CTN leadership has already formed twelve committees to evaluate recent advances in translational and clinical HCT research, and has received agreement from twelve distinguished leaders in the field to act as committee chairpersons. Importantly, we intend to publish the recommendations of the symposium and we plan oral presentations of the symposium's major findings at the 2007 ASH meeting and the 2008 Tandem meeting.