Types of Transplantation in Bone Marrow

Bone Marrow Transplant

Bone marrow is a soft, fatty tissue inside your bones that produces blood cells. Stem cells are immature cells in bone marrow that gives rise to different blood cells. Various diseases such as blood cancer, anemia and some genetic diseases can be treated by bone marrow transplant. Bone marrow transplant is also called as Haemopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Overview

Bone marrow transplant is a procedure to replace destroyed or damaged bone marrow with healthy bone marrow stem cells. A marrow transplant involves taking a sample of bone marrow from a donor and reimplanting it into a patient. Several diseases such as lymphoma and leukemia can be treated by this. Cancer cells invade the marrow and prevent them from functioning properly. Bone marrow has three types of stem cells which are White blood cells, Red blood cells and Platelets. It is an essential part of the body which needs immediate treatment if any person is detected with cancer.

The defective bloods cells accumulated in the blood interfere or evade the function of other tissues. These abnormal blood cells are destroyed by radiations or chemotherapy which can also destroy normal blood cells in bone marrow. Bone marrow transplant is also used by doctors to treat abnormal blood cells with replacing the damaged bone marrow or radiation. The whole procedure does not guarantee recurrence of the disease.

Autologous Transplantation

Autologous Bone Marrow Transplant recovers stem cells from the body of the patient being treated and are stored in a freezer.After the stem cells are recovered the patientis subjected to high dose of chemotherapy. Once the chemotherapy sessions are completed the stem cells are introduced back into the patient’s body in an intravenous manner allowing the bone marrow to produce new blood cells.

In Autologous transplantation physicians usually recover stem cells that circulate in the bloodstream, called peripheral blood stem cells. Peripheral blood stem cell harvesting is a similar procedure like giving blood it is easier than taking cells from a person’s bone marrow, which is sometimes done for allogeneic transplants. It does not require general anesthesia. Once the stem cells have been harvested, it goes through a process called a preparative regimen. Physicians customize the particular therapies based on disease and treatment which is most likely to respond. Physicians transplant the harvested stem cells into the patient’s bloodstream in the same way a blood transfusion is done. Over the weeks transplanted stem cells migrate to the marrow space in the bones where they gradually begin to produce new blood cells.

Allogeneic Transplantation

Allogeneic bone marrow transplant involves obtaining the required stem cells for treatment from a donor. The donor must have a genetic match with the patient that is being treated. Usually stem donors are blood related to the patient or have a very good genetic match. The exact genetic match is established after conducting numerous blood tests. The immune system can distinguish the difference between the body’s own cells and foreign cells and can destroy a foreign cell which makes it very important that the donor’s tissue matches the patient’s tissues as closely as possible. If the tissue is not a close match serious complications may arise which may be difficult to treat.

A combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy is given to eradicate cancer cells and suppress the patient’s immune system. The new stem cells are then infused into the patient’s bloodstream through an intravenous catheter. High doses in the treatment can suppress the immune system by destroying blood-forming stem cells in bone marrow which decreases the risk of patient’s body by rejecting the donor’s cells.

Who are the ideal candidates?

Ideally bone marrow transplant is performed on patients who are suffering from the following diseases:

• Lymphoma
• Acute myeloid leukemia
• Chronic myeloid leukemia
• Acute lymphoblastic leukemia
• Testicular cancer
• Thalassemia
• Myelodysplastic syndrome
• Aplastic anemia
• Sickle cell anemia
• Multiple myeloma
• Immune deficiency

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