Web Site Helps BMT Personnel

Respond to Radiation Incidents  

A Web site for helping BMT physicians respond to radiation incidents has been created by the Radiation Injury Treatment Network (RITN), a joint project of the ASBMT and the National Marrow Donor Program.

The Web site provides guidelines and protocols for comprehensive evaluation and treatment of victims of radiation exposure or other marrow-toxic injuries.  The information is based on more than 20 years of the U.S. Navy's leadership in contingency preparedness through the NMDP and was prepared by representatives of transplant centers, donor centers and cord blood banks.  The groups have been meeting since 2003 to prepare for radiological or chemical events that result in hematopoietic toxicity.

The Web site address is http://www.nmdp.org/RITN.

Designed for expansion and update in the coming months, the Web site complements the Radiation Event Medical Management (REMM) Web site at http://remm.nlm.gov that was introduced in March by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Whereas the REMM site has a broad focus on first-responder triage and community and hospital-wide incident response, the RITN site is specific to hematopoietic cell therapy.