Bone Marrow Transplant

General Procedures of Leukaemia Bone Marrow Transplant

Sharon Reed

The medical treatment process of bone marrow transplant involves changing bone marrow cancer cells with healthy ones. The source of these replacement cells either be a donor or your body.

To be specific we’re talking about stem cell transplant here, more specifically, hematopoietic stem cell transplant. Transplantation is meant to treat certain cancer types like myeloma, leukemia, and lymphoma with other immune systems and blood diseases affecting bone marrow.

Working of Bone Marrow transplant

Here we tell the process of ALLO and AUTO transplants. Generally, each process involves the collection of replacement stem cells, a patient who gets treatments for making their body ready for transplant, the day of the actual transplant, and finally the time is taken for recovery.

A little tube is placed often in the chest of the patient remaining through the process of transplant. It is often known as a catheter. The health care experts offer you chemotherapy, medications, and transfusions through the catheter. It reduces the needles on the skin, as patients would also need frequent blood tests with other treatments in a transplant procedure.

Note that bone marrow transplants are complicated medical processes and certain steps can happen sometimes in another order or during a different period, for personalization of specific care. You can ask your oncologist whether the procedure with happening in a medical facility for different steps, and for how much time if they ask you to do so. It is best to consult your medical care provider about all important things that will happen, before, during, and after the transplant.

AUTO Transplant Working Process

Step 1 – Stem Cell Gathering – The steps would have to be completed in several days. Firstly, you get injections to increase stem cell count. Later the health care experts get samples of the stem cells from a chest or arm vein. The stem cells are stored until doctors need them.

Step 2 – Treatment Pre-transplant – This step involves a long time, around 5 to 10 days. You’ll get high-dose chemotherapy. Patients also occasionally get radiation therapy to prepare for treatment.

Step 3 – Getting back stem cells – The actual transplant process is this step. It takes around 30 min for each stem cell dose. It is known as an infusion. The team of healthcare experts carries back stem cells into the bloodstream with a catheter. One or more infusions can be needed.

Step 4 – The Recovery Process – The doctors closely monitor the cell’s growth and recovery and prescribe antibiotics to lessen infection. The health care team also works to treat side effects.

Working on ALLO transplant

Step 1 – Identification of donor – You should find a matching donor before starting the ALLO leukemia bone marrow transplant procedure. Blood testing is done to get HLA type. Then the team of healthcare experts directs you to do an HLA test on prospective donors in the family, and when needed, to look for any volunteer registry of any donors who are not related to the patient.

Step 2 – stem cell collection from the donor – the cells are collected from either the bone marrow or the blood of your donor. For bloodstream cells, the donor gets daily medication shorts to get more white blood cells before cell collection. If stem cells are available from bone marrow, the donor has a bone marrow harvest procedure in the operating room of the hospital.

Step 3 – Treatment pre-transplant – The step takes around 5 to 7 days to finish. Chemotherapy is with or without any radiation therapy which prepares the body to get donor cells.

Step 4: Getting cells from the donor – This is your day of the transplant. The health care expert pulls or infuses the cells of the donor into the bloodstream with the catheter. The process is completed in under an hour.

Final step – Recovery – At the beginning of the recovery phase you are prescribed antibiotics to lessen the infection risk with other drugs, including medications to manage or prevent GVHD. The medical care provider team also treats any transplant side effects.

The leukemia bone marrow transplant procedure can be difficult to bear and can result in various side effects with both short-term and long-term effects. However, it is a very successful leukemia treatment process for recovery.

Contact Us:

Gift of Life Marrow Registry

Address: 800 Yamato Rd suite 101 Boca Raton, FL 33487
Phone: (800) 962-7769

How to Find a Stem Cell Donation near Me?

Sharon Reed

Anyone who is thinking of donating the stem cell should find out the centre where the donation is done. Try to look for nearby centre so that you do not waste your time. Moreover, those who are looking for donor can also contact the donation centers that are nearby.

Contact Your Friend to Know about Stem Cell donation Centre

If someone in your family member or friend has already done stem cell donation he or she will be the right person to guide you. You can take the address of the centre/clinic where he or she has visited and done the donation of stem cell. This will save you from unnecessary hassle and you will be having all the contact details.

You can then do stem cell donation under the observation of doctors. Moreover, if you are in need of stem cell the doctor will help you to find the right match for you. There are many things doctors look for such as tissue type match. These clinics and centre also have proper register wherein the details of willing volunteer donors are clearly mentioned. Search for matching donor is done and after that appropriate tests are conducted and if everything is ok the process takes place.

Take Help of Social Media

 Nowadays, social media plays a vital role in finding the correct information about anything. You can also verify it through your own resources as well. Lot of information can be collect through it which can be of great help to you.

Seek Help of Your Family Doctor

 Your family doctor can also help you in finding stem cell donation clinic or centre near your home or office. By donating your stem cell you can save the life of the person who needs it. The only thing is that the tissue should match with the person receiving it. There are many such donation centre where many people register themselves and when the need arises they donate their stem cells.

There is no need to bother if you have done the stem cell donation. You will be able to resume your work within a couple of days. However, it might take few more days depending on individual. The joy of saving someone’s life will give you immense satisfaction.

The stem cells are basically of two types 1. Embryonic, and 2. Bone marrow stem cells.  For Research and in therapeutic cloning study of embryonic stem cell takes place. While in the treating the cancer patients’ bone marrow stem cells are used. These cells are formed and mature fully in the bone marrow. After that it is released into your bloodstream.

Donation Clinic Needs to be Fully Equipped

It is very important that the clinic or the centre where you wish to register for donating your stem cell or receive the stem cell from donor should be fully equipped. So, try to do your search for the nearby donation centre that is fully equipped. There are many tests that will be done before you can actually do the donation. Age limit is also the main criteria which you doctor will guide you.

Contact US:

Gift of Life Marrow Registry

Address: 800 Yamato Rd suite 101 Boca Raton, FL
Phone: (800) 962-7769

Side Effects of Bone Marrow Transplants

Sharon Reed

Also known as stem cell transplant, a bone marrow transplant is considered to be an effective option for handling certain types of cancers. It could certainly make a difference between life and death for patients who are suffering from leukemia and various other types of cancer and blood disorders. While it could mean the difference between life and death, there are also some dangers and risks associated with a bone marrow transplant. It does come with the risk of side effects and the same has to be addressed properly without which the whole exercise of bone marrow transplant might become irrelevant and meaningless. While some side effects may subside and resolve within a period, some side effects can be permanent. Hence, before going in for a bone marrow transplant, you must discuss with your health care team and get to know more about the possible side effects. These include short-term effects that could last for a few weeks or months. Further, there are some long term side effects also and these could take years to resolve or could become a life-long phenomenon. The side effects could range from anemia. This is a vital aspect of cancer care and treatment. Handling side effects is often referred to as supportive care or palliative care. You must frankly discuss the symptoms with the healthcare team so that the right solution could be found.

 Some Side Effects of Auto Transplant

 Before a transplant of the bone marrow is done, patients often receive a combination of radiation therapy or chemotherapy. In many cases, it could be either one of the two. Many side effects of auto stem cell transplant are the same that are associated with the treatment of various forms of cancer and other such terminal diseases. The risk of infections is one of the most dangerous or frightening. This is essentially caused because of a big reduction in the number of white blood cells in the body.

 Chemotherapy tends to weaken the immune system of our body. Patients might be at a much higher risk of infections caused by viruses, germs, and bacteria. The risk is the highest after the first few weeks of infection. While certain drugs can fight the infection, for many patients the immune system gets damaged after chemotherapy and it remains that way permanently. There are many instances where patients who have undergone chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant are put on antibacterial and antiviral drugs for as long as one year or even more.

 A Few More Side Effects

 Apart from the increasing risk of reduced immune power, the patients may also suffer from other problems. These could vary from one person to another and could range from fatigue, mouth sores, vomiting and nausea, low platelet count, reduction in red blood cells and much more. These could lead to a reduction of the ability of the blood to clot and could also lead to anemia. Some people also complain of diarrhea

 There also could be long term effects such as cataracts, infertility, an early setting of menopause, bone or lung damage, and risk of new forms of cancers amongst various other problems.

Contact US:

Gift of Life Marrow Registry
Address:  800 Yamato Rd suite 101  Boca Raton, FL
Phone: (800) 962-7769