CLEVELAND — MetroHealth unveiled its new Blood and Marrow Transplant Program on Thursday, which has the goal of helping those who face socioeconomic barriers that prevent them from receiving care at other places. 


What You Need To Know

  • MetroHealth explained that many patients face challenges to receiving care at times, including lack of reliable transportation, access to health food, a support system and more

  • The program will have its first transplant later this month

  • Once five transplants are completed and deemed successful, it will apply for accreditation through the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy

“Many of our patients have limited resources,” said Dr. William Tse, who joined MetroHealth in 2020 as division director of Hematology & Oncology. “If we simply use a conventional transplant approach, our outcomes may be poorer because our patients may be riskier to treat. We want to provide a safer, more supportive approach to transplant.”

MetroHealth explained that many patients face challenges to receiving care at times, including lack of reliable transportation, access to health food, a support system and more. The program hopes to address those needs through its Institute of H.O.P.E., the Food as Medicine Program and other services. 

The health system said "a disproportionate number of transplant patients are white and/or belong to a higher socioeconomic status," both locally and nationally.

“As a transplant community, we are not getting these services to everyone who needs them,” Kindwall-Keller said. “A lot of centers don’t have the additional resources that our patients need. We do.”

The program will have its first transplant later this month.

As for the process, stem cells are collected from the patients. This is because when patients receive high doses of chemotherapy for certain cancers or diseases, it can hurt the body's ability to produce new red blood cells. The harvested cells are frozen and stored for when they complete their treatment, in which they can receive the healthy cells. 

MetroHealth said there's usually two or three weeks between the stem cell collection and the transplant.

MetroHealth said it's also partnering with the American Red Cross to perform the collections and processing. Once five transplants are completed and deemed successful, it will apply for accreditation through the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy. It hopes to have this done around the end of the year.