Thread: 2nd Opinion
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Old Wed Jul 31, 2013, 02:36 PM
Neil Cuadra Neil Cuadra is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Los Angeles, California
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Quote:
Originally Posted by edithr View Post
Can you tell me more about this map? When was it last updated, and who published it?
We who run Marrowforums maintain the Treatment Center Map ourselves, based on Comprehensive Cancer Centers identified by the National Cancer Institute and MDS Centers of Excellence identified by the MDS Foundation. We update it at least annually and it's due for another update. It doesn't cover all bone marrow treatment centers in the U.S., even all those of good quality, since we don't know a way to identify all of them.

The US News & World Report hospital rankings are useful too, although they focus on overall quality and broad disease areas like "childhood cancer", not specifically on bone marrow failure diseases.

I hope both resources are useful and that parents evaluate treatment centers by visiting them or checking their doctors' experience and specialities too. For example, being designated an "MDS Center of Excellence" doesn't indicate aplastic anemia and PNH experience. You need to dig deeper to learn which center is best for your family, and balance what you learn against the disadvantages of going to a distant hospital.
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