Ten years ago, who knew how much of an impact one four-room unit would make on cancer care for the region.

Since the Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplantation Program opened at MCG Health System in 1997, it has treated well over 200 patients with cancers like leukemia, lymphoma and other solid tumors requiring aggressive chemotherapy. It was, and continues to be, the first and only BMT program in this area.

Wanda Attaway, the first patient to receive a stem cell transplant at MCG, remembers how grateful she was that the program was here. “They made my fight with cancer into a good experience,” says Attaway, who came to MCG after surgery for breast cancer. “I was in shock anyway because I had been diagnosed with cancer, but they were real sweet. And the fact that the new program was right here in our own town meant that I didn’t have to travel three hours away or worry about how my husband could take off work.”

That availability is one of the main reasons Dr. Anand Jillella was brought to MCG to start the BMT program. As its Director for most of the program’s 10-year-history, Dr. Jillella’s continuing mission is to help patients in the Augusta area, South Georgia and parts of South Carolina get the care they need closer to home. “Before this program started, patients had to travel up to five hours away to get treatment,” said Dr. Jillella. “We planned to treat 10 to 15 patients in the first year, but ended up treating more than 20 because the need was so great.”

Over the past 10 years, the program has continued to grow. Four beds have become six. In 2004, an outpatient clinic that sees 200 patients a month was added next door to the unit. Dr. Jillella now provides stem cell transplants to 40 patients a year, and he plans for that number to soon become 50. “Our next goal is to be able to offer not only related donor and self transplants, but also unrelated donor transplants matched through the National Marrow Donor Program,” said Dr. Jillella.

That’s good news for patients like Attaway, who still gets her care here. Although she is in remission, she still clearly remembers that time 10 years ago when she first walked in and was offered the choice of one of four new rooms in the unit - feeling sick from the chemotherapy, praying the time would hurry by as she watched reruns of “Law & Order,” and laughing with her caregivers as they celebrated her becoming the first patient on the unit.

“People were so good to me, and Dr. Jillella was fantastic,” said Attaway, who spent more than a month on the unit. “And afterwards, they asked me to call and talk to new patients about what it’s like to go through something like this. All I can say is, for patients with cancer, the fact that this program is here is just great.”

MCG Health System is composed of three organizations - MCG Health Inc. and the clinical services offered by the faculty of the Medical College of Georgia and the members of the MCG Physicians Practice Group.  MCG Health, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation operating the MCG Medical Center, MCG Children’s Medical Center, the MCG Sports Medicine Center, MCG Ambulatory Care Center, the Georgia Radiation Therapy Center and related clinical facilities and services.  MCG Health, Inc. was formed to support the research and education mission of the Medical College of Georgia, and to build the economic growth of the CSRA, the state of Georgia and the Southeast by providing an environment for delivering the highest level of primary and specialty health care.  For more information, please visit www.MCGHealth.org.