Newswise — NYU Langone Medical Center is pleased to announce the opening of The Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Stem Cell/Bone Marrow Transplant Center (Kaplan Center), dedicated to providing stem cell transplants and comprehensive in-patient and out-patient care for adult and pediatric patients with hematologic cancers. The Center was established with a generous $ 4.2M gift from the Rita J. Kaplan and Stanley H. Kaplan Family Foundation.
This generous gift is one of many provided by the Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Family Foundation to the Medical Center. A former trustee at NYU Langone, in 1938 Mr. Kaplan created the Stanley H. Kaplan Co., the nation's first and largest test preparation company which transformed the way students prepare for higher education.
“The new Kaplan Center places the NYU Cancer Institute at the forefront of stem cell transplantation providing the most advanced and comprehensive care to patients and catapulting our expertise to the next level,” said William L. Carroll, MD, director of the NYU Cancer Institute and Julie and Edward J. Minskoff Professor of Pediatrics. “The NYU Cancer Institute is dedicated to rapidly translating knowledge from our laboratory programs in stem cell biology and immunology directly to stem cell transplantation to improve patient outcomes.”
The Kaplan Center will offer comprehensive treatment to patients by some of the country’s leading physicians specializing in stem cell transplantation, as well as access to an integrated care team of nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, nutritionists, physical therapists, recreational and child-life specialists that educate and prepares patients and their families for transplant and aftercare at home. This comprehensive Center will provide a unique approach to transplants, offering supportive services for patients and families to maintain their physical, psychological, social, emotional, cultural, and spiritual quality of life.
“Stem cells are the way of the future,” said Susan B. Kaplan, daughter of Rita and the late Stanley Kaplan and president of the family’s foundation. “They are a remarkable, renewable source of replacement cells that may offer hope to the many patients with blood cancers. My Dad had visions of changing the world and medicine was a major focus. We chose NYU Langone Medical Center because of my parents’ distinguished and long relationship with New York University.”
In stem cell transplantation, a procedure similar to a blood transfusion, healthy bone marrow stem cells are infused into a patient to replace deficient or destroyed bone marrow. The term is used generically to describe several different techniques including autologous bone marrow transplants, which are taken from the patient’s own stem cells, and allogeneic bone marrow transplants, where stem cells come from a donor such as a family member, sibling, an unrelated donor or umbilical cord blood donation.
“Adult and pediatric autologous and allogeneic stem cell transplant procedures will be offered at the Kaplan Center,” said Jasmine Zain, MD, director of The Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Stem Cell/Bone Marrow Transplant Center, assistant professor in the Department of Medicine. “These stem cell transplants are the only curative option for patients with certain types of blood cancers like leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma and certain non-cancerous illnesses that cause bone marrow to become deficient.”
Located on 16 East of Tisch Hospital at the Medical Center, the 3,600-square-feet Kaplan Center will feature six state-of-the-art, positive-pressure, in-patient private rooms designed for extended-stay during the several week transplant process. Each room has a specialized air filtration system to create the most protective environment for the stem cell transplant patient that becomes immune-suppressed during treatment. A unique feature of the Center will be its additional out-patient after-care area. This area will supply rapid out-patient treatment to post-transplant patients to reduce hospital readmissions by closely managing any side effects of transplantation and offering a specialized area for necessary infusions of intravenous medications.
The new Kaplan Center will also be closely linked with NYU Langone’s research of the science behind drug development to help better bridge patients to transplant. “If we can get a patient in remission from their cancer prior to transplant with innovative novel drug platforms they can have better outcomes,” said Owen A. O'Connor, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies and Medical Oncology at NYU Langone Medical Center. “We will also closely track the care and outcomes of our patients receiving stem cell transplants by performing long-term follow-up research studies to make greater strides against blood cancers.”
The Rita J. And Stanley H. Kaplan Stem Cell/Bone Marrow Transplant Center is located on 16 East floor of NYU Langone Medical Center’s Tisch Hospital located at 550 First Avenue in New York, NY. It is an integral component of the NCI-designated NYU Cancer Institute and the Department of Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center.
About The Cancer Institute at NYU Langone Medical CenterThe NYU Cancer Institute is an NCI-designated cancer center. Its mission is to discover the origins of human cancer and to use that knowledge to eradicate the personal and societal burden of cancer in our community, the nation and the world. The center and its multidisciplinary team of experts provide access to the latest treatment options and clinical trials along with a variety of programs in cancer prevention, screening, diagnostics, genetic counseling and supportive services. For additional information, please visit: www.nyuci.org.
About NYU Langone Medical CenterNYU Langone Medical Center, a world-class patient-centered integrated academic medical center, is one of the nation’s premier centers for excellence in health care, biomedical research, and medical education. Located in the heart of Manhattan, NYU Langone is comprised of three hospitals – Tisch Hospital, a 705-bed acute-care tertiary facility, Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, the first rehabilitation hospital in the world, with 174 beds and extensive outpatient rehabilitation programs, and the 190-bed Hospital for Joint Diseases, one of only five hospitals in the world dedicated to orthopaedics and rheumatology—plus the NYU School of Medicine, one of the nation’s preeminent academic institutions. For more information, visit www.NYULMC.org.
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