What do bone marrow transplants treat

Many people who have an allogeneic transplant get GVHD at some point. The risk of GVHD is a bit greater if the stem cells come from an unrelated donor, but it can happen to anyone who gets a bone marrow transplant from a donor. There are two kinds of GVHD: acute and chronic.

Acute GVHD usually happens earlier, during the first months after your transplant. It typically affects your skin, digestive tract or liver. Chronic GVHD typically develops later and can affect many organs.

You'll undergo a series of tests and procedures to assess your general health and the status of your condition, and to ensure that you're physically prepared for the transplant. The evaluation may take several days or more. In addition, a surgeon or radiologist will implant a long thin tube intravenous catheter into a large vein in your chest or neck.

The catheter, often called a central line, usually remains in place for the duration of your treatment. Your transplant team will use the central line to infuse the transplanted stem cells, medications and blood products into your body. If a transplant using your own stem cells autologous transplant is planned, you'll undergo a procedure called apheresis af-uh-REE-sis to collect blood stem cells. Before apheresis, you'll receive daily injections of growth factor to increase stem cell production and move stem cells into your circulating blood so that they can be collected.

During apheresis, blood is drawn from a vein and circulated through a machine. The machine separates your blood into different parts, including stem cells. These stem cells are collected and frozen for future use in the transplant. The remaining blood is returned to your body. If you're having a transplant using stem cells from a donor allogeneic transplant , you will need a donor.

Once a donor is found, stem cells are gathered from that person for the transplant. Stem cells can come from your donor's blood or bone marrow. Your transplant team decides which is better for you based on your situation.

Another type of allogeneic transplant uses stem cells from the blood of umbilical cords cord blood transplant. Mothers can choose to donate umbilical cords after their babies' births. The blood from these cords is frozen and stored in a cord blood bank until needed for a bone marrow transplant.

After you complete your pretransplant tests and procedures, you begin a process known as conditioning. During conditioning, you'll undergo chemotherapy and possibly radiation to:.

The type of conditioning process you receive depends on a number of factors, including your disease, overall health and the type of transplant planned. You may have both chemotherapy and radiation or just one of these treatments as part of your conditioning treatment. Based on your age and health history, your doctor may recommend lower doses or different types of chemotherapy or radiation for your conditioning treatment.

This is called reduced-intensity conditioning. Reduced-intensity conditioning kills some cancer cells and suppresses your immune system. Then, the donor's cells are infused into your body. Donor cells replace cells in your bone marrow over time. Immune factors in the donor cells may then fight your cancer cells. Your bone marrow transplant occurs after you complete the conditioning process. On the day of your transplant, stem cells are infused into your body through your central line.

When the new stem cells enter your body, they travel through your blood to your bone marrow. In time, they multiply and begin to make new, healthy blood cells. This is called engraftment. It usually takes several weeks before the number of blood cells in your body starts to return to normal.

In some people, it may take longer. In the days and weeks after your bone marrow transplant, you'll have blood tests and other tests to monitor your condition. You may need medicine to manage complications, such as nausea and diarrhea. After your bone marrow transplant, you'll remain under close medical care.

If you're experiencing infections or other complications, you may need to stay in the hospital for several days or sometimes longer. Depending on the type of transplant and the risk of complications, you'll need to remain near the hospital for several weeks to months to allow close monitoring.

You may also need periodic transfusions of red blood cells and platelets until your bone marrow begins producing enough of those cells on its own. You may be at greater risk of infections or other complications for months to years after your transplant.

You'll have periodic lifelong follow-up appointments with your doctor to monitor for late complications. If your bone marrow transplant is using stem cells from a donor allogeneic transplant , your doctors may prescribe medications to help prevent graft-versus-host disease and reduce your immune system's reaction immunosuppressive medications. After your transplant, it takes time for your immune system to recover. During this time, you may be given medications to prevent infections.

After your bone marrow transplant, you may need to adjust your diet to stay healthy and to prevent excessive weight gain. Your nutrition specialist dietitian and other members of your transplant team will work with you to create a healthy-eating plan that meets your needs and complements your lifestyle.

Your dietitian can also give you food suggestions to control side effects of chemotherapy and radiation, such as nausea. After your bone marrow transplant, regular physical activity helps you control your weight, strengthen your bones, increase your endurance, strengthen your muscles and keep your heart healthy.

As you recover, you can slowly increase your physical activity. There are different kinds of stem cell transplants. They all use very high doses of chemo sometimes along with radiation to kill cancer cells.

But the high doses can also kill all the stem cells a person has and can cause the bone marrow to completely stop making blood cells for a period of time. In other words, all of a person's original stem cells are destroyed on purpose. But since our bodies need blood cells to function, this is where stem cell transplants come in. So, transplanting the healthy cells lets doctors use much higher doses of chemo to try to kill all of the cancer cells, and the transplanted stem cells can grow into healthy, mature blood cells that work normally and reproduce cells that are free of cancer.

There's another way a stem cell transplant can work, if it's a transplant that uses stem cells from another person not the cancer patient. In these cases, the transplant can help treat certain types of cancer in a way other than just replacing stem cells. Donated cells can often find and kill cancer cells better than the immune cells of the person who had the cancer ever could. The "graft" is the donated cells. The effect means that certain kinds of transplants actually help kill off the cancer cells, along with rescuing bone marrow and allowing normal blood cells to develop from the stem cells.

Transplant has been used to cure thousands of people with otherwise deadly cancers. Still, there are possible risks and complications that can threaten life, too. People have died from complications of stem cell transplant. The expected risks and benefits must be weighed carefully before transplant.

Your cancer care team will compare the risks linked with the cancer itself to the risks of the transplant. They may also talk to you about other treatment options or clinical trials. Here are some questions you might want to ask. Be sure to express all your concerns and get answers you understand. Transplant is a complicated process. Find out as much as you can and plan ahead before you start. Ask about these factors and how they affect the expected outcomes of your transplant or other treatment.

Many people get a second opinion before they decide to have a stem cell transplant. You may want to talk to your doctor about this, too. Also, call your health insurance company to ask if they will pay for a second opinion before you go.

You might also want to talk with them about your possible transplant, and ask which transplant centers are covered by your insurance.

Stem cell transplants cost a lot, and some types cost more than others. For example, getting a donor's cells costs more than collecting your own cells. And, different drug and radiation treatments used to destroy bone marrow can have high costs.

Some transplants require more time in the hospital than others, and this can affect cost. Even though there are differences, stem cell transplants can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. A transplant or certain types of transplants is still considered experimental for some types of cancer, especially some solid tumor cancers, so insurers might not cover the cost. Ask if the doctors and transplant team you plan to use are in their network, and how reimbursement will work.

A bone marrow or cord blood transplant may be the best treatment option or the only potential for a cure for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, sickle cell anemia and many other diseases.

As the science of transplant continues to advance, new diseases are being treated with transplant. Myelodysplastic syndromes and myeloproliferative disorders.

MDS are a group of diseases that affect the bone marrow and blood. Multiple myeloma and other plasma cell disorders. Diseases treatable by transplants Groundbreaking research continues to advance the science of transplant so more diseases can be treated with a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. How transplants work Diseases treatable by transplants. Leukemias and lymphomas, including: Acute myelogeneous leukemia AML —The most common type of acute leukemia with nearly 15, new cases found in the United States each year.

AML can affect people of any age, but is most common in adults. It can affect people of any age, but is the most common type of leukemia in children under