HISTORY OF BONE MARROW TRANSPLANTATION

The first attempts at bone marrow transplantation took place in 1938 at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv. Professor Jan Raszka supervised these pioneering experiments. At that time, attempts were made to transplant the bone marrow of a healthy donor into a sick patient, and the site of bone marrow administration was the sternum. Unfortunately, at that time there was still a lack of medical knowledge to make transplants successful.

In 1956 , the first successful bone marrow transplant from a twin donor was performed. Professor Edward Donnall Thomas played a key role in the development of this procedure. His research on conditioning led to a breakthrough in bone marrow transplantation.

On November 28, 1984, the first successful bone marrow transplant was performed in Warsaw. Thanks to the pioneering procedure of Prof. Jędrzejczak 's team, a 6- year-old girl received marrow from her sister.

In 1997 , the first transplant from an unrelated donor was performed. The first person in Poland to transplant bone marrow from an unrelated donor was Urszula Jaworska . This groundbreaking procedure took place on February 18, 1997 , in the Department of Hematology of the Silesian Medical Academy in Katowice. Professor Jerzy Hołowiecki and his team performed this pioneering transplant, opening up new possibilities for treating patients with blood diseases. Urszula Jaworska was treated by Dr. Ilona Seferyńska at the Institute of Hematology in Warsaw. Before this event, such procedures were not performed in Poland, and finding a suitable donor was exceptionally difficult due to tissue compatibility. Urszula Jaworska was lucky, because after a three-year search, a donor was found for her in October 1996. At that time, there were many fewer registered donors in the world than there are today.