Bone Marrow Transplant | Stem Cell Transplant | Leukemia Treatment

Bone marrow transplant is a process in which damaged bone marrow is replaced with healthy bone marrow stem cells. It is actually a new medical procedure which is used to treat that diseases which were incurable in past. Particularly it is used to treat patient suffering from Leukemia. Firstly this treatment was successfully used in 1968. Bone Marrow translation is abbreviated as BMT.

Bone marrow is soft fatty spongy tissue inside our body. The bone marrow of skull bone, hips, breast and spine contains stem cells. These cells mature and produce blood cells of the body including,

White blood cells (leukocytes)
Red blood cells (erythrocytes)
Platelets

Visit following link to read more about blood cells,

http://leukemia-symptoms.thehealthinfo.net/2010/10/what-is-bone-marrow-bone-marrow-cancer-bone-marrow-test/

Types of bone marrow transplant

Mainly there are three types of bone marrow transplantation,

Autologous Bone Marrow Transplantation

Auto means “self” . This BMT is used in conjunction with chemotherapy or radiation therapy treatment. Firstly, before applying high dose of chemotherapy or radiotherapy, stem cells are removed from affected bone marrow. Then after finishing treatment, stem cells are put back in body. This is also called “rescue” transplant.

Allogeneic Bone Marrow Transplantation

“Allo” means “others”. The person from which stem cells are removed is called donor. In Allogeneic bone marrow transplant, the genetic makeup of donor’s bone marrow must match the patient’s own genetic makeup as perfectly as possible. There are special blood tests for this which show whether the bone marrow of donor matches the patient’s bone marrow or not.

Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation

In this transplantation stem cells are removed immediately from the umbilical cord of infant , after birth. For the transplant purpose, these stem cells are stored. Umbilical cord blood cells are less mature. So there is less concern that they will not match.

Procedure of Bone Marrow Transplantation

It consists of following steps,

Before BMT, chemotherapy or possibly radiotherapy is needed if leukemia is not in remission. Leukemia or cancerous cells should be at lowest possible level for effectiveness of BMT. This treatment takes several days.

Peripheral blood cell harvest is a procedure used to collect stem cells from donor. An injection of growth factor is given to patient over a 10 days period. This function controls and helps the bone marrow to make large number of stem cells and to make blood cells at faster rate. Then donor can recover from transplant more quickly. This harvesting of blood cells takes 3-4 hours .

In process of harvesting patient lie down on a bed and will have two blood bags, which are connected to each of his arms. Blood then moves from one arm to other via a machine called “cell separator.” This machine separates out the stem cells from other blood cells. This separator will only pick stem cells and other blood cells are returned to body blood stream through blood bag which is connected to other arm.

Problems which may occur during or after transplantation

Complications of bone marrow transplant depend on many things including,

The disease which is under treatment.
Intensity of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Age of patient.
Matching level of genetic makeup with donor.
The type of bone marrow transplant.

These are major problems that may occur after bone marrow transplant.

Graft-Versus Host Disease: When patient receive bone marrow cells from a donor, it may cause complications. This happens when donors blood cells attack your body tissues. Medicines are provided by doctor to control this problem. It is mild but in some cases it can be serious.

Graft-Failure: It is very rare. In this problem, the new blood cells fed into the blood may not be able to make enough blood cells. If patient suffer from graft-failure then another transplant my be required.

Helplessness: It is also a common feeling among the bone marrow transplant patients, they have feeling of angriness .

Side Effects Of Bone Marrow Transplantation

- Level of blood cells will be very low.

- It may cause infections due to low level of white blood cells.

- May cause anemia, due to low level of hemoglobin.

- Bleeding due to low level of platelets.

- Fever

- Tiredness

- Patient may be too week, sleep more than normal.

- May cause headache.

- May cause nausea.

- May cause sore mouth.