Bone Marrow Transplant

admin — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:21:40 +0000

Bone marrow transplant refers to the procedure employed to replace damaged or destroyed bone marrow cells with healthy stem cells.
A relatively new technique (first used in 1968), bone marrow transplant helps save millions of lives every year.
What is bone marrow?
Bone marrow is fatty, flexible tissue found in the hollow interiors of bones. The bone marrow present in the skull, breast bone, ribs, spine and hips contains immature stem cells which develop into red blood cells (which transport oxygen throughout the body and help in removing wastes from the body), white blood cells (which combat infections) or blood platelets (which bring about clotting of blood).
Who needs bone marrow transplant?
The stem cells of people suffering from blood cancer (leukemia), lymphoma, aplastic anemia, multiple myeloma, sickle cell anemia, congenital neutropenia, thalassemia, and some rare deficiency diseases malfunction. In case of leukemia, an unduly large number of defective or immature cells are produced while aplastic anemia is characterized by low blood cell counts. The defective and immature cells thus produced hamper with the normal functioning of the body by invading other tissues. Such people require bone marrow transplant.
Chemotherapy and radiation are first used to kill the malfunctioning stem cells and blood cells. Such therapies destroy healthy cells present in the bone marrow as well, along with the unhealthy and abnormal ones. In cases like these, bone marrow transplant comes to the rescue of such patients- enabling the physicians to first use chemicals and radiation to treat the diseased bone marrow and then replace it.
After a successful transplant, the new bone marrow starts producing normal blood cells.
Types of bone marrow transplant
Bone marrow transplants are of three types:
1. Autologous bone marrow transplant: Also called a “rescue” transplant, this involves removal of healthy stem cells from the patient’s body before aggressive chemotherapy or radiation which can kill them. After the deviant cells have been killed, the normal stem cells are put back into the body. That is to say, the patients are their own donors.
Autologous bone marrow transplant is possible in cases where the disease does not occur in the bone marrow itself like ovarian cancer, breast cancer, brain tumors, Hodgkin’s disease and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; or in cases where the disease in the remission stage.
2. Allogeneic bone marrow transplant: In such cases, stem cells from another person (called the donor) are infused into the patient. The genetic makeup of the donor’s blood must be very similar to the patient’s blood, so that the cells are readily accepted by the body, and this requires special blood tests. Siblings (brothers or sisters) make the best matches, though the bone marrow of parents, children and other relatives may also match at times. Unrelated donors can be found through national or international bone marrow registries. Again, bone marrow from people belonging to the same racial or ethnic group is more likely to match than a random donor.
3. Umbilical cord blood transplant: A relatively new technique, this involves the removal of stem cells from a newborn baby’s umbilical cord at the time of birth and storing them, just in case they might be needed later for a transplant. The immature cells from the umbilical cord are frozen for years but since they belong to the patient himself, the body accepts them readily.
Risk factor and complications
A bone marrow transplant might be accompanied by one or more of the following symptoms:
• Body aches
• Headache
• Fever
• Chest pain
• Hives
• Chills
• Nausea
• Lowered blood pressure
• Breathlessness, etc.
Complications might arise depending upon many factors like:
• The age of the patient
• His overall health
• The disease he is being treated for and
• How perfect a match of the bone marrow could be got.
Complications might manifest as:
• Serious infections, which might be life-threatening
• Anemia
• Damage (temporary or permanent) to vital organs like the heart, kidney, lungs and liver
• Stomach disorders like nausea, vomiting and diarrhea
• Uncontrolled bleeding in the brain, lungs, intestines, lungs, etc.
• Early menopause among women
• Cataract
• Swelling and soreness in the oral cavity, throat, food pipe and stomach.
• A complete graft failure, wherein the new cells are not accepted by the donor and they do not start producing healthy stem cells, as was expected of them.
• Graft-versus-host disease: A rare condition in which the donor cells start attacking the host cells
Bone marrow transplant helps save millions of lives across the globe every year. Inspite of this, nearly 70% of the people who need a transplant are unable to get on e because they are unable to find suitable donors.