(AP) - E. Donnall Thomas, a physician who pioneered the use of
bone marrow transplants in leukemia patients and later won the
1990 Nobel Prize in medicine, has died in Seattle at age 92. The
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center announced the death
Saturday. A spokesman said the cause was heart disease. Thomas'
work is among the greatest success stories in the treatment of
cancer. Bone marrow transplantation and its sister therapy,
blood stem cell transplantation, have improved the survival
rates for some blood cancers to upward of 90 percent from almost
zero. This year, about 60,000 transplants will be performed
worldwide, according to the Hutchinson Center. "Imagine coming
up with an idea, making it a reality and touching that many
lives," said Dr. Fred Appelbaum, Thomas' friend and the director
of the center's Clinical Research Division. Thomas took after
his father and became a doctor after getting his medical degree
from Harvard. In 1956, he performed the first human bone marrow
transplant. Thomas, alon