By Faten Omar

KUWAIT: Under the patronage of the Minister of Health Dr Khaled Al-Saeed, the first pediatric stem cell transplant conference in Kuwait (KPSCTC) opened on Wednesday. On behalf of the minister, Secretary-General of the Kuwait Institute for Medical Specializations (KIMS) Dr Fawaz Al-Rifai said there is wide interest on the part of the Ministry of Health in the field of pediatrics, oncology and cell transplantation, stressing that KIMS is working to make Kuwait an internationally-accredited center for stem cell transplants.

Rifai added that the conference is an unprecedented event of its kind after efforts were made over the past years by conducting many stem cell transplants, hoping for more achievements to provide this service to children in need. Dr Sondus Al-Sharidah, Chairperson and Director of Pediatric SCT program in Kuwait, and Head of Pediatric SCT unit in NBK's Specialized Hospital for Children, highlighted the launch of the pediatric transplant and cellular therapy unit and the Kuwaiti experience in this field.

Secretary-General of the Kuwait Institute for Medical Specializations (KIMS) Dr Fawaz Al-Rifai speaks during the conference.

"Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is an advanced therapeutic intervention for malignant and non-malignant conditions, often for critically ill patients. The establishment of an HCT program requires the efforts of experienced and appropriately trained personnel to lead the program," she explained. Sharidah noted that for the newly-started Kuwaiti pediatric program, it is essential to identify minimal requirements for establishing the pediatric HCT unit in order to optimize resource utilization as well as maintain patient safety, adding the children's transplant unit was launched in Oct 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In hematopoietic cell transplantation, patient and disease characteristics including age, comorbidities and disease status must be considered. The dose intensity of the pre-HCT conditioning varies between MAC, RTC, RIC, and NMA treatment models. Also, it may include irradiation, chemotherapy, serotherapy, monoclonal antibodies and targeted therapy, which varies in different malignancies and types of donors," she explained.

Dr Sondus Al-Sharidah, Chairperson and Director of Pediatric SCT program in Kuwait, makes her address.

Regarding Kuwait's experience, she revealed that 25 pediatric HCTs were performed between October 2020 and June 2022. Sharidah said there will be plans in the future for starting several services including the NBK stem cell process lab, TBI, accreditation, membership with international bodies, cellular therapy, CAR T cell and CAAR T therapy, gene therapy and starting KNSC registry for matched unrelated donor (MUD) hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.