Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) is one of the most effective procedures that help in treating various types of blood cancer. Most of these cancers start in your bone marrow where blood is produced. The bone marrow is a soft, spongy liquid tissue in the centre of the bones. It has a rich supply of stem cells, and its main job is to make blood cells that circulate in your body.
BMT majorly includes a medical process to replace the bone marrow that has been damaged or destroyed due to infections or diseases. BMT helps in the production of new blood cells and promotes the growth of new marrow. This further helps the body make enough white blood cells, platelets or red blood cells to avoid infection or bleeding disorders.
Types of BMT:
Autologous bone marrow transplant is also known as a rescue transplant is the technique where stem cells are removed from the body before the patient receives high-dose chemotherapy or radiation treatment. The stem cells extracted from the body are stored in a freezer at adequate temperature and returned to the body after the chemotherapy.
An allogenic bone marrow transplantis when another donor’s stem cells are removed and injected into the patient’s body. Certain tests are performed in order to determine the match of donor’s genes to patients. A family member such as a sister or a brother is most likely to be a good match.
Umbilical cord blood transplantis a kind of allogenic transplant that uses stem cells of a newborn’s umbilical cord right after birth. These stem cell collected are then stored and used when needed. Today, bone marrow transplant has become easier due to the advanced technology in collecting and storing bone marrow from the donor’s body. Bone Marrow is usually collected from the donor body and stored for future use.
Donor’s stem cells can be collected in two ways.
Bone marrow harvestis a common procedure used for collecting donor’s stem cells. Minor surgery is performed on the donor and the marrow is removed from the back of the pelvic bone. The harvested marrow is filtered, stored in a special solution in bags, and then frozen. When the marrow is to be used, it’s thawed and then put into the patient’s blood through a vein, just like a blood transfusion. The stem cells travel to the bone marrow and start to make blood cells.
While inLeukapheresis, the donor’s stem cell from the bone marrow is moved into the blood after which the blood is removed from the body through IV line. The white blood cells & red blood cells are separated, saving the white blood cells for the patient and returning the red blood cell to the donor.
A successful BMT depends on the match between the donor & recipient genes. Sometimes it gets difficult to find a good match among unrelated donors. The patient is kept under close monitor after the transplant. It generally takes around 10 to 28 days after the initial transplant to notice the first signs of rising white blood cell count. However, it takes around typically 3 to 12 month to recover completely. Recovery also depends on various factors such as donors match, condition of the patient being treated, chemotherapy, etc. It is also possible that some of the symptoms stay with the patient’s life long. One can also donate their bone marrow by registering on theMarrow Donor Registry website.
A bone marrow transplant is sometimes the only option to treat life-threatening blood cancers disorders. With increasing technology and new researches on the topic each day, it is only becoming easier to treat blood cancer.
