bone marrow transplant

bone marrow transplant, the transfer of bone marrow from a healthy donor to a recipient whose own bone marrow is affected by disease. Bone marrow transplant may be used to treat aplastic anemia; sickle cell anemia; various malignant diseases of blood-forming tissues, including leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma; certain solid cancers such as neuroblastoma; immune deficiency diseases; and metabolic diseases.

In 1956 American physician E. Donnall Thomas performed the first successful syngeneic (genetically identical) bone marrow transplant between two humans. The tissues of the recipient, a patient with leukemia, accepted the donated marrow (or graft) from his identical twin and used it to make new, healthy blood cells and immune system cells. Thomas adopted methods to match the tissues of donor and recipient closely enough to minimize the latter’s rejection of the former’s marrow. He also developed drugs to suppress the immune system, further reducing the chances for graft rejection by the recipient. In 1969 these refinements enabled Thomas to perform the first successful bone marrow transplant in a leukemia patient from a relative who was not an identical twin. In 1990 Thomas was corecipient (with American surgeon Joseph E. Murray) of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his pioneering work on bone marrow transplantation.

Autologous and allogeneic transplants

Today, the two most commonly used bone marrow transplants are known as autologous and allogeneic. Both types of transplants are considered forms of stem cell therapy, since hematopoietic stem cells from the bone marrow are central to the recovery of the patient receiving the graft. An autologous transplant is used primarily in the case of cancer patients who are preparing to undergo high doses of chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Autologous transplant involves harvesting stem cells from the patient’s bone marrow and storing these cells prior to therapy. After the patient has undergone therapy to destroy the cancer cells, the stem cells are injected into the bloodstream to speed recovery of the bone marrow. If an individual’s marrow is diseased—from leukemia, for example—a person with a matching tissue type is found to donate stem cells. This type of transplant is called an allogeneic transplant.

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Risks of bone marrow transplant

Major risks associated with bone marrow transplant include increased susceptibility to infection, anemia, graft failure, respiratory distress, and excess fluid, which can lead to pneumonia and liver dysfunction. In addition, a mismatch between donor and recipient tissues can lead to an immune reaction between cells of the host and cells of the graft. When graft cells attack host cells, the result is a dangerous condition called graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), which may be acute or chronic and may manifest as a skin rash, gastrointestinal illness, or liver disease. The risk of GVHD can be minimized through careful tissue-matching. This is done by comparing a set of cell-surface proteins called human leukocyte antigen (HLA)—a system of molecules that enable components of the immune system such as T cells to mount an attack against foreign substances. Donor HLA antigens that exactly match those of the recipient increase the chances for a successful transplant. However, even when a donor antigen match is identical, roughly 40 percent of recipients still develop GVHD; this figure increases to between 60 and 80 percent when only a single antigen is mismatched. Because of the danger of this complication, autologous transplants are more commonly performed.

Bone marrow transplantation initially was not recommended for patients over age 50, because of the higher mortality and morbidity that results and because the incidence of GVHD increases in those over age 30. However, many transplant centres have performed successful bone marrow transplantations in patients well beyond age 50. People who donate bone marrow incur no risk, because they generate new marrow to replace that which has been removed.

Collection of donor stem cells

Hematopoietic stem cells from a bone marrow donor are collected using apheresis. During this procedure, blood is drawn from one arm and passes through a machine that collects the stem cells. The remaining portion of the blood is then returned to the donor via a catheter inserted in the arm opposite the one from which the blood is drawn. Prior to undergoing apheresis, the donor receives injections of a drug such as filgrastim (granulocyte colony-stimulating factor), which mobilizes stem cells into the peripheral blood circulation. Following donation, some people experience fatigue, nausea, muscle pain, bone pain, and headache. Multiple apheresis sessions may be needed to collect a sufficient number of stem cells from a donor. In rare cases, donors may need to undergo bone marrow harvest. In this procedure, the donor is placed under anesthesia, and bone marrow aspiration is performed, typically taking marrow from the iliac crest of the hip or from the breastbone.

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