Madhuri Vusirikala, M.D.

Bone Marrow Transplant Specialist

Patients with hematologic malignancies who may require bone marrow transplantation are in good hands with UT Southwestern Medical Center's Madhuri Vusirikala, M.D.

Dr. Vusirikala takes care of adults with blood cancers and offers bone marrow transplants for any diseases that require them. She performs a variety of transplants, including autologous, allogeneic, cord blood, and haploidentical. She also treats patients who don’t require transplantation but whose conditions require highly skilled maintenance care, including a number of patients transplanted at other centers.

“We get many referrals, both for transplanting patients and for treating patients with complex and chronic hematologic diseases,” she says.

Dr. Vusirikala runs the Bone Marrow Transplant and Hematologic Malignancies Clinic’s Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease (GVHD) Clinic, a survivorship program that serves patients who develop this complication after an allogeneic transplantation. She is also the Director of the National Marrow Donor Program portion of the UT Southwestern stem cell transplant program. 

As the primary investigator of most of UT Southwestern’s clinical trials related to bone marrow transplantation, Dr. Vusirikala is active in clinical research and says she takes pride in being thorough and looking at the big picture for each patient.

“I try to be a very comprehensive transplant physician, one who considers each patient as an individual and takes an aggressive yet sensitive approach,” she says. “I weigh the risks of transplantation with the benefits – in the short term and the long term. Sometimes, transplant is not the best treatment for a patient, and I believe in reviewing all treatment options available and helping pick the best treatment for that patient.”

Dr. Vusirikala thinks it's important to educate both the patient and his or her family and build a strong relationship with every patient. There is so much information out there for patients and sometimes it gets very confusing as to what is beneficial, she says. Dr. Vusirikala believes in reviewing all the information with patients and their families and helping them interpret the data.

“Patients should always look at transplant center statistics, ask questions, and talk with other patients who have been treated at that center,” she says. “Patients should feel like they can approach their transplant physician with any issue at any time and have all their questions and concerns addressed. I’m a strong believer in that.”