The Outpatient Clinic for Roswell Park's Transplant & Cellular Therapy (TCT) Center will move to a larger home this month to support future outpatient treatment with cellular therapies and enhance TCT patient care.
The expanded services will help introduce clinical trials of promising new treatments for patients with cancer and hematologic (blood) disorders such as sickle cell anemia. The new center will continue to treat patients receiving immune effector cellular (IEC) therapies as part of a clinical trial, as well as those receiving new FDA-approved treatments. Three new IEC treatments are expected to receive FDA approval this year.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic is controlled, the new TCT center will make it possible for select patients undergoing TCT — including blood and marrow transplant (BMT) and adoptive cellular therapies — to receive all or part of their treatment on an outpatient basis. Currently patients are hospitalized for up 21 days or longer following cellular therapy.
Stephen Schinnagel, MS, TCT Program Administrator, notes that the center will open on 6 North, formerly the pediatric and inpatient care unit. Features include:
- Twelve larger multipurpose rooms to support outpatient services, including medical procedures
- Increased infusion space to deliver outpatient therapies
- A dedicated in-clinic phlebotomy area for point-of-care service
- A private intake and assessment area
- Private restrooms in every exam room
- A mobile computing system to streamline clinic workflow
The TCT program cares for patients receiving blood and marrow transplant (BMT) or other cellular therapies, including adoptive cellular therapies (for example, Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy), utilizing modified T-cells to harness the immune system to better target the cancer.
Roswell Park was among the first BMT centers in the world and among the first authorized to treat patients with FDA-approved cellular therapies for relapsed acute lymphocytic leukemia, diffuse large B cell lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma (with — respectively — Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel), Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) and Tecartus (brexucabtagene autoleucel)).
It’s expected that the FDA will approve new cellular therapies in 2021 to treat solid tumors (using tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs)), lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Roswell Park patients already have had access to new IEC therapies through clinical research protocols.
The Roswell Park TCT program is FACT-certified, a global standard for delivering the highest-quality patient care in cellular therapies, and certified to deliver IEC therapy to meet to strict FDA standards. The clinical staff’s expertise, along with the resources and expanded space of the new outpatient center, will help Roswell Park “provide a new level of care,” Schinnagel says.
