# Donald Pinkel

Source: https://onco.cc/people/donald-pinkel/  
OnCo record `donald-pinkel` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

As the founding director of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in 1962 he designed Total Therapy, combining drugs with treatment of the brain and spinal fluid, and raised childhood leukaemia cure rates from near zero to about half within a decade.

## Summary

Donald Pinkel (1926-2022) became the first medical director of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis when it opened in 1962, at a time when acute lymphoblastic leukaemia killed almost every child within a year. His Total Therapy studies treated children with combination chemotherapy for remission, added prophylactic treatment of the central nervous system, first with cranial irradiation and intrathecal methotrexate, because that was where the disease hid and relapsed, and continued treatment for two to three years. By 1971 he reported that around half of children were long-term survivors, and the design he set out remains the skeleton of every ALL protocol today, with cure rates now above 90 percent. He insisted from the start that St. Jude treat Black and white children on the same wards. He received the Lasker Award in 1972 and later led paediatric oncology in Milwaukee and Texas.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-09
- Tags: hero; pioneer
- Role: First director of St. Jude; devised Total Therapy for childhood leukaemia
- Specialisms: Paediatric oncology; Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia; Protocol design

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Pinkel
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Pinkel
- St. Jude Children's Research Hospital: https://www.stjude.org/

## Connected records

- cancers: [Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia](https://onco.cc/cancers/all-leukemia/)
- fronts: [Chemotherapy](https://onco.cc/fronts/chemotherapy/)
- technologies: [Cytotoxic chemotherapy](https://onco.cc/technologies/cytotoxic-chemotherapy/)
- drugs: [Methotrexate](https://onco.cc/drugs/methotrexate/), [Vincristine](https://onco.cc/drugs/vincristine/)
- terms: [Cancer health disparities and equity](https://onco.cc/terms/cancer-health-disparities/)
- people: [Emil "Tom" Frei III](https://onco.cc/people/emil-frei/), [Emil J Freireich](https://onco.cc/people/emil-freireich/)
- bottlenecks: [Rare and paediatric cancers without markets](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-rare-cancers/), [Survivorship and late effects are neglected](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-survivorship/)

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