Diseases That Can Benefit From A Bone Marrow Transplant

Bone marrow transplant is a procedure to replace the hematopoietic stem cells within the bone
marrow that aid production of the various blood components in the body. Certain types of
cancers and other diseases lead to depleted production of the blood cells leading to multiple
complications within the body.
Diseases affecting the bone marrow such as aplastic anemia, thalassemia, immune deficiencies
and blood cancers (leukemia) can be cured in some patients with an allogeneic hematopoietic
stem cells transplant. Autologous hematopoietic stem cells transplant for relapsed lymphomas
and multiple myeloma is done by collecting the patient's own hematopoietic stem cells before
giving chemotherapy and then infusing these back to them after chemotherapy, to help them
recover from the side effects of the chemotherapy.
Doctors assess and then decide on the type of bone marrow transplant that can be performed
for the diseased individual. These include the autologous bone marrow transplant, the
allogenic bone transplant and the umbilical bone marrow transplant.
The autologous bone marrow transplant helps treat various kinds of blood cancers such as
leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. This form of transplant also helps deal with certain solid
tumors - breast cancer, testicular cancer, osteosarcoma and others. Given that the autologous
bone transplants allow the use of high dose chemotherapy it is helpful in treating patients that
have a better chance of cure or long-term control of their disease. Most people have a single
autologous transplant. Others, particularly those with myeloma or some solid tumors, may have
two or more sequential (one after the other) transplants, over a period of a few months.
Bone marrow transplants via the allogenic bone marrow transplant method are employed to
treat various blood cancers and other serious diseases such as leukemia, different types of
lymphoma, myeloma, myelodysplastic syndromes, aplastic anemia and other rare bone marrow
diseases. The precondition for finding a suitable donor for the allogenic bone marrow transplant
is that the genetic make-up of the donor must closely match that of the diseased patient. Thus,
the donor is typically a close relative of the patient.