Division of Pediatric
Hematology/Oncology, Chang Gung Children’s Hospital
Pediatric hematology/oncology in Chang-Gung Memorial
Hospital, Taipei was established in 1976. Not until 1992
that the division of pediatric hematology/oncology was born
and relocated to the 6th floor of Chang-Gung
Children's Hospital at Linkou, Taoyuan. Chang-Gung Children’
Hospital is a teaching hospital of Chang-Gung University.
Our subspecialty ward has 28 inpatient beds, staffed with
attending physicians, rotating residents, numbers of
experienced nurses and pediatric oncology nurses. Today,
our team members consist of 4 board-certified pediatric
hematologist /oncologists, 1 oncology nurse practitioners ,
1 transplant coordinator, and 1 medical technologist. A clinical hematology laboratory
offers facilities to perform general hematology and
coagulation tests, including peripheral blood and bone
marrow smears to be interpreted by the hematologist in
charge of patients. This laboratory is established both for
education and service purposes.
A chemotherapy room was designed for outpatient service. It
is equipped with TV set, video, magazines, educational
materials and brochures; it also has a small library
supplying books for all ages. It is a venue for
chemotherapy, blood transfusions, and procedures as well as
a site for communications between nurse practitioners,
oncology nurses and family members. It is also a place to
hold educational sessions, counseling and patient-parent
conferences. Family support group was established in 2001.
About 100 new pediatric cancers are diagnosed and treated in
our department each year. Senior physicians have over
40
years subspecialty experience. They are active members in
Taiwan’s Hematology Society and senior in the Taiwan
Pediatric Oncology Group (TPOG). The team members are
actively involved in the clinical trials of TPOG. Now many
long-term cancer survivors are being followed in the clinic.
We diagnose and treat congenital or acquired anemia, white
blood cell disorders and bleeding disorders. We take
consultations for the diagnosis of patients with fever of
unknown origin, hepatosplenomegaly, lymphadenopathy, and
other difficult pediatric cases.
In April 1998, allogeneic bone marrow transplantation was
added to our cancer treatment, as one of the new therapeutic
option and for patients with medical indication. An
efficient and up-to date cancer registration system is also
available to us. Patients are monitored during and after
completion of treatment. In 2003, we had performed the first
successful transplant of unrelated umbilical cord blood (UCB)
for a child with β-thalassemia
major in Taiwan. UCB has opened a new era for hematopoietic
stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Till now, we had performed
154 cases of cord blood transplantation (CBT) at Chang Gung Children’s Hospital. In the past, there are no other
options for therapy if patients with hematologic
malignancies or primary immunodeficiency who failed to
respond to conventional treatment. HSCT should be the first gleams of day to them. A major limitation of allogeneic bone marrow
transplantation is a shortage of donors. Therefore, the
potential donor pool is considerably increased from
unrelated cord blood units. For thalassemia patients,
educational program on the delivery of home chelation
therapy is available by appointments. In cooperation with an
NMDP-affiliated cord blood bank, we had successfully
performed unrelated cord blood transplantation in 76
patients with thalassemia major, the largest unrelated cord
blood transplant series in Taiwan, and have achieved an
unprecedented long-term survival.
We take pride in leading this life saving therapy in Taiwan.
It is difficult to envisage a transplant. We offer a great
community setting for family-centered maternity care.
With regionalization of nontrauma
care and child development, the principles are
individualized for each patient and situation. In order to lessen separation
anxiety and stress of the strange situation, this task
cannot be accomplished without close cooperation between the
patients and transplant team. We consistently consolidated necessary cooperation
and coordination among related medial teams to offer a
policy composing an accessible, safe, integrated,
participant, proper, continuous service. It is not easy to
find an unrelated volunteer who shares the same tissue type
and is willing to donate bone marrow. CBT has
extended the availability of allogeneic HSCT to patients who
would otherwise not be eligible for this curative approach.
The constant threat of consequences is a reminder to the
pediatric patients of the uncertainty of the
transplant course. Both the person and his family may feel
exhausted. The key point is ability to intervene with
patients and families using more
than one treatment modality. Such teamwork could
promote its services in
conjunction with “regrowth of new life”.
By virtue of his hit show on the National Geographic
Channel’s Global Rebrand (2012) documentary Taiwan’s Medical
Miracle, 4-year-old girl from Malaysia, who was suffering
from thalassemia major, flew to Linkou CGMH for CBT.
Moreover, “Miracles recur - Children with thalassemia major:
Full-term care in cord blood transplantation” was officially
certified gold medal for the “Symbol of National Quality” in
2013.
Our team became
nationally famous because of the activities we participated in the
Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant
Research (CIBMTR). The CIBMTR is a research program formed in July 2004
through an affiliation of the International Bone Marrow
Transplant Registry (IBMTR) and the National Marrow Donor
Program (NMDP).
We emphasize multidisciplinary team care. We receive support
and are backed up by various pediatric subspecialties, and
share experience with many other support groups which are
all indispensable in the care of cancer children.
The
international service center (ISC)
of Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital
is a one-stop service center for our international patients.
ISC can offer services before the patient arrive in Taiwan.
The patient coordinators will offer personal international
service for you. The coordinator can liaise with the
patients to provide advice and help match them with the international
patient medical tourism, the
medical records or documents which need to bring, the
necessary financial budget, and the transportation
information in Taiwan. For example, at the first visit of
Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital, a patient coordinator will
inform the patient of the transportation from the airport to
Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital, book the rooms of the hotel,
organize the medical appointments or operations with
physicians, complete the registration forms and inform the
patient of residential details in Chang-Gung Memorial
Hospital and so on. For
more information,
please click on
the following link to see the International Medical Center:
http://www.chang-gung.com/en/index.php
