NHLBI workshop summary. Idiopathic pneumonia syndrome after bone marrow transplantation.

Introduced in the early 1970s for treatment of aplastic anemia and leukemia, bone marrow transplantation offers potentially effective treatment for a growing number of patients. The procedure is now recognized as therapeutic for an increasing number of diseases. Furthermore, advances in transplant immunobiology, supportive care, and prevention of graft-versus-host disease, coupled with the availability of suitable donors, make the technique both effective and feasible. In 1990 more than 5,500 patients received allogeneic marrow transplants from matched or partially matched family members, and more than 5,000 autologous transplant procedures were performed. The recent creation of the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), which currently lists more than 600,000 potential donors, has made identification of unrelated phenotypically HLA-identical donors possible for patients who do not have suitable donors among family members. It is estimated that more than 500 unrelated transplants will be performed in 1992....