This grant is submitted in support of an R-13 application (Grant Support for Conferences and Scientific Meetings) to the NIH for a non-recurring one and one-half day conference entitled: Safeguarding Adult and Pediatric Stem Cell Donors: Basic Science, Clinical and Ethical Issues. The Symposium will be held on Tuesday September 21 (am and pm) and Wednesday September 22, 2004 (am only) and will be located in the Masur Auditorium NIH Clinical Center (Building 10), Bethesda, MD. This one and one-half-day Symposium will be designed to address key issues related to the safety of pediatric and adult, related and unrelated allogeneic donors providing stem cells via bone marrow aspiration, peripheral blood stem cell or cord blood collection. Examples of these issues include the safety and the mechanism of action of G-CSF mobilization, risks of musculoskeletal and neuromuscular damage from bone marrow aspiration, risk of hypocalcemia and central catheter complications in apheresis peripheral blood stem cell donors, and the ethics of exposing related donors (especially pediatric donors) to G-CSF or other mobilizing agents. Speakers will include leaders in the field of adult and pediatric stem cell transplantation, ethicists and transfusion medicine specialists.
AIM 1 of the Symposium will be to facilitate development of a National or International Donor Registry database that would follow matched-unrelated as well as related allogeneic donors for years post donation. The Registry would be patterned after the ABMTR/IBMTR registry currently in existence.
AIM 2 will be to encourage and facilitate the development of additional voluntary agency Standards (AABB, NMDP and FACT) aimed at ensuring increased stem cell donor safety. There is general consensus that additional donor safety Standards should be developed. This Symposium would address the need for such Standards and stimulate the process.
AIM 3 will be to publish a summary of the Symposium in a nationally recognized Journal.
