For the fourth year in a row, the University of Iowa’s Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center Adult and Pediatric Blood & Marrow Transplant (BMT) Program has been rated an “over-performer” by the Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) in their annual review and ranking of 174 national BMT programs performing allogeneic transplants. Only 7 percent of US centers achieved this distinction in 2017.

The CIBMTR ranking report is a critical measure that can help patients, families, and referring providers identify the best transplant centers to treat blood cancers like leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, myelofibrosis, myeloma, and lymphoma. This report compares the predicted and actual survival rates of patients across a rolling three-year period, adjusting for several risk factors in order to more accurately compare programs.

The predicted survival for allogeneic transplant recipients treated at Iowa during this period of time was 64.2 percent but the actual survival rate was 73.1 percent, a dramatic difference. Iowa’s BMT Program  is one of only two “over-performing” programs in the Midwest in 2017, which speaks to the unique skill and dedication of the entire team.

In a message to her colleagues, BMT Interim Director Dr. Margarida Magalhaes-Silverman thanked everyone for their contribution to the program’s unique success. “Only great team work has made this possible.”

CIBMTR has published these rankings yearly since 1994 and with this methodology since 2005. They will make this report publicly available at bethematch.org and at a US Department of Health and Human Services website