History of bone marrow transplantation in Poland

The first attempts to transplant bone marrow in Poland (and most probably also in the world) were undertaken in 1938 by Jan Raszek-Rosenbusch and Franciszek Groer (Figure 1) at the Department of Pediatrics, King Jan Casimir University in Lvov. Raszek-Rosenbusch and Groer started their work from the idea that blood disorders should respond to infusion of healthy bone marrow administered intramedullary because these are in fact disorders of bone marrow. Therefore, the procedure that had been developed hinged on collection of several milliliters of bone marrow from a healthy donor (frequently sibling or parent) and a direct intramedullar (intrasternal) infusion to the recipient. This treatment was then repeated several times in the same patient. Several remarkable responses particularly in disorders like pernicious anaemia were observed [1].

Keywords: Transplantation, Bone Marrow