Introduction of JSHCT

JSHCT (Japan Society for Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation) was initiated as The Nation-wide Gathering for Friendly Discussion about Bone Marrow Transplantation in 1978 and changed its naming to Bone Marrow Transplantation Study Group in 1980. At the 13th Annual Meeting in 1991, when the 2nd Annual Meeting of Asia-Pacific Blood and Marrow Transplantation Group (APBMT) was jointly organized, the group expanded its membership to nurses and the other co-medicals, had the bylaws and elected the officers. At the 19th Annual Meeting in 1996, the group developed to Japan Society for Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (JSHCT) and in 2006, JSHCT was approved to be NGO under the Japanese Law. JSHCT has now 2,300 members of physicians, nurses, the other co-medicals, donor and clinical coordinators, volunteers and pharmaceutical companies. JSHCT has been primarily the academic society for transplant clinicians but recently it is expanding its interests to cell therapy and regenerative medicine. The core activities of JSHCT are consisted of organizing annual congress, publishing quarterly JSHCT Letters, managing the data centers for transplant patient and donor registration, publishing Annual Report of Nationwide Survey for transplant recipients, promoting more than 20 working groups, steering more than 10 committees and publishing multiple guidelines for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The members of JSHCT are playing key-roles for steering JMDP (Japan Marrow Donor Program), JCBBN (Japan Cord Blood Bank Network), APBMT (Asia-Pacific Blood and Marrow Transplantation Group) and WBMT (Worldwide Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation). JSHCT is also deepening the relationships with other national and international academic societies. JSHCT has the home page (http://jshct.com/) through which one can get more information of our society.

The second statement from Japan Society for Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (JSHCT) on recent earthquake disaster and subsequent nuclear power plant accident in Japan.

May 31, 2011
Japan Society for Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (JSHCT)

The JSHCT express our deepest condolence and sympathy again for all the losses and peoples still enduring this very difficult time, and we also show our sincere deference to those who are working so hard to rescue and restore the affected areas. The JSHCT has been taking necessary actions to support the patients or victims in disabled areas according to the plans listed on our previous statement. Since that time, the situation of disabled area including Fukushima nuclear power plant has kept changing, but it remains to be unsettled. Taking those changes into considerations, the JSHCT hereby summarize our views of settlement and supports for those who are still suffering from the sequela of the recent disaster.

  1. The JSHCT will continue to work together closely with donor registries and related organizations in order to ensure that the patients in affected area, who in needs for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation as standard of care, will receive the procedure without any delay.
  2. The JSHCT requests the authorities responsible for the operation of Fukushima nuclear power plant to take necessary steps to secure the safety of nuclear workers. Those include medical check-up with the tests for estimating the dose of their radiation exposure according to the law and guidelines in order to avoid both acute and late radiation injury. In addition, the JSHCT again requests the authorities to disclose detailed data and information on the workers working at the site and to establish the work project and working hours to secure protect them from high-dose radiation exposure accordingly.
  3. The radiation level of inside of Fukushima nuclear power plant remains high, and it is expected to take a long time to recover the disabled nuclear plant. Under those circumstances, together with the fact that the precise and detailed information on the radiation dose and the health status of nuclear workers have not been disclosed properly on timely fashion, the JSHCT considered that the risk of accidental radiation exposure will accumulate for the nuclear workers. Therefore, the JSHCT continue to collaborate with transplant centers where the peripheral blood hematopoietic stem cell (PBSC) harvest and collection is available. Currently, 107 transplant teams are standing by to collect and store their own stem cells for nuclear workers who are at a risk of accidental high-dose radiation exposure through their works at the sites of accident.
  4. However, autologous PBSC transplantation is not a perfect strategy to treat radiation victims as the procedure rescues only the hematopoietic capacity but no other tissues. The JSHCT concerns that having a safety net of stored cells could encourage unnecessarily dangerous behavior among the workers, increasing the risk of health problems, thus we would like to reemphasize that all the measures for protecting the nuclear workers from high-dose radiation should be a matter of highest priority.
  5. The JSHCT will continue to work together with ninety five transplant teams and donor/stem cell banks, and is standing by in order to perform hematopoietic stem cell transplantation by using all kinds of stem cell sources including cryopreserved autologous stem cells in timely fashion if unfortunately the accidental high-dose radiation exposure occurs.
  6. The JSHCT considers it essential to share our experience together with the above mentioned detailed data regarding the nuclear workers with both domestic as well as oversea donor registries, organizations, and academic societies in order to set up or refine the protocols of multidisciplinary team approaches in order to prepare for nuclear power plant accident in future.
  7. The systems and networks supporting hematopoietic stem cell transplantation have almost completely restored and become capable to deal with massive radiation victims. The JSHCT now considers the situation where our medical resources are overwhelmed for handling massive accidental radiation victims becomes unlikely. The JSHCT would like to express again our sincere appreciation to many oversea academic organizations and stem cell banks for kindly offering their resources at the beginning of the disaster.

The statement from Japan Society for Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (JSHCT) on recent earthquake disaster and subsequent nuclear power plant accident in Japan.

March 29, 2011
Japan Society for Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (JSHCT)

The Japan Society for Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (JSHCT) would like to express our deepest sympathy for all the losses and peoples still enduring this very difficult time. The JSHCT will work together by all means to overcome this devastation and hereby declare that we will offer the following supports.

  1. As of March 24, 2011, one hundred and sixty eight transplant teams participating in the JSHCT are ready to accept patients for whom the allogeneic stem cell transplantations had been scheduled but were postponed or cancelled because of the disaster (173 teams are also available for those who are in need of autologous stem cell transplantation).
  2. In addition, ninety one transplant teams are standing by to treat victims of radiation exposure from the nuclear power plant accident.
  3. Also, 107 transplant teams are standing by to collect and store their own hematopoietic stem cells from the peripheral blood for workers who are striving to restrain the radiation. However, this procedure must not be considered as securing the work in high radiation exposure and JSHCT re-emphasize the protecting them from high radiation exposure remains essential.
  4. The above mentioned supports from JSHCT are not applied for the general public at this moment.
The JSHCT requests the authorities related to the operation of nuclear power plant in Fukushima to disclose more detailed data and information that helps us to plan and prepare more precise setup to treat possible nuclear accident victims.

Finally, the JSHCT would like to express our sincere appreciation for generous offers from CIBMTR/ASBMT, EBMT, NMDP, WBMT, and many other organizations of the world in case of our medical resources are overwhelmed.