More than 3,750 transplants have taken place at St James’s since 1984 Ireland’s first bone marrow transplant has been remembered, 40 years on from the life-saving procedure first taking place here. The operation was performed in St James’s Hospital Dublin in 1984 by an expert team led by Shaun McCann , emeritus Professor of Haematology at Trinity College Dublin and Head of Transplantation at the hospital. The procedure was an allogeneic transplant where donor stem cells were harvested from a sibling in order to treat a patient with leukaemia.
Since then, more than 3,750 stem cell and bone marrow transplants have taken place at the facility. The hospital now performs stem cell transplants in almost 200 patients in Ireland each year. The National Adult Stem Cell Transplantation Service has since expanded to include the first Irish Centre for Adult CAR T-Cell Therapy.
Such cellular therapies are often life-saving treatments for blood related cancers such as leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma but also include some rare cases of bone marrow failure. The St James’s service is currently the third largest of its kind in the UK and Ireland, with patients referred to it from all over the country. Mairsile Hourihane received a bone marrow transplant at St James’s Hospital in 1989.
“My diagnosis of CML (chronic myeloid leukaemia) nearly 40 years ago was the beginning of an uncertain and scary time in my life,” she said. “After my diagnosis in St Vincent’s Hospital, I was u.