On Aug. 9,  2011, the Siteman Cancer Center announced that it had performed its 5,000th bone marrow transplant, a landmark moment as one of the top cancer centers in the U.S. The 5000th transplant patient is Gary Ronchetto, 60, of Morrisonville, IL, who received his transplant from Ravi Vij, MD, to fight multiple myeloma.

The transplant program was established at Washington University in 1980. The first recorded transplant was performed in 1982 with marrow from a matched sibling pair.