Federal government renews contract for collecting and maintaining national stem cell transplantation database

The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) successfully competed for, and was awarded, renewal of the Stem Cell Therapeutics Outcomes Database contract with the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The CIBMTR administers the database as a key component of the national hematopoietic cell transplantation program. Hematopoietic stem cells are the cells responsible for continual regeneration of circulating blood cells throughout life; they are not embryonic stem cells.

The HRSA first awarded the contract to CIBMTR in 2006 to develop and maintain the national Stem Cell Therapeutic Outcomes Database (SCTOD), which is a standardized outcomes registry of allogeneic (related and unrelated donor cells) marrow and cord blood transplants performed in the United States. Funding for the first year of this new contract is $3.8 million, with an additional four years of negotiable funding.

The outcomes registry of the CIBMTR currently contains the status of 330,000 transplant recipients, as well as critical information to continually evaluate the operations of the national transplant program. All U.S. transplant centers that perform allogeneic marrow and cord blood transplants are required to provide patient outcomes data to the registry.

CIBMTR is privileged to continue to operate the Outcomes Database on behalf of the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program, said J. Douglas Rizzo, M.D., M.S., professor of medicine at MCW, associate scientific director at CIBMTR and principal investigator of the SCTOD. CIBMTR delivers value by using the Outcomes Database to provide clinicians, scientists, patients and policymakers the information they need to make the best possible clinical decisions. It is a beneficial platform to expand important research to advance the field, plan clinical trials, facilitate quality improvement and perform studies on behalf of policymakers. The major goal of the program is to make blood and marrow transplants available to all who need them, and to increase their safety and effectiveness.

Congress first enacted HRSA's C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program in 2005, which led to the creation of the Stem Cell Therapeutic Outcomes Database. Congress reauthorized the Program in 2010. It is named after U.S. Congressman C.W. Bill Young of Florida, who was instrumental in founding a national marrow donor registry that could provide potentially life-saving treatment for those diagnosed with leukemia and other blood diseases.

The Medical College's CIBMTR is a partnership formed through an affiliation of the Medical College's International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry and the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP). Since 1972, the Center has collected outcomes data provided voluntarily by transplant centers worldwide on both allogeneic (related and unrelated donor cells) and autologous (patient's own cells) hematopoietic stem cell transplants, and has made these data available to investigators and physicians worldwide to perform research to advance the field. The CIBMTR has published nearly 800 peer-reviewed papers (more than 45 in the past year alone) and is conducting more than 250 observational studies. It also has helped to coordinate 28 national clinical trials in HCT, 18 of which have completed accrual.

In addition to the Stem Cell Therapeutic Outcomes Database, HRSA recently awarded other C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program contracts to the NMDP, in order to continue the Program's work as the Office of Patient Advocacy/Single Point of Access for transplant patients, the Bone Marrow Coordinating Center and the Cord Blood Coordinating Center.