A bone marrow transplant is a helping hand

Bone marrow transplant, in principle, is a fairly new medical procedure - but with its help you can successfully treat diseases previously considered incurable. Since the first successful bone marrow transplantation in 1968, this procedure has been used to treat leukemia (blood cancer), aplastic anemia, lymphomas, multiple myelomas, serious immunity disorders and even some types of malignant tumors (breast or ovarian cancer).

Patients are transplanted so-called hematopoietic stem cells, which are found in a healthy person in the bone marrow - a special hematopoietic tissue, which is in turn in the bones of the skeleton. It is known that most of the bone marrow is contained in the sternum, pelvic bones and spine. The transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells is caused by the fact that such cells "precede" all blood cells and immunity in the human body. Even if a small number of hematopoietic stem cells is transplanted to the patient, they can still completely restore the process of hematopoiesis and the immune system.

A bone marrow transplant is a procedure by which you can treat cancer with very high doses of chemotherapy in the first place, and, in some cases, with radiation. It is known that such treatment permanently and thoroughly destroys the patient's bone marrow, and therefore, in principle, it seems impossible, because the body loses the vital ability to produce blood cells. Nevertheless, if after treatment in the patient's body to introduce a healthy bone marrow, it is possible to replace the bone marrow and restore the ability of the patient's body to hematopoiesis. In this regard, bone marrow transplantation allows for high-dose therapy to cure cancer when low doses of radiation are useless, which is why bone marrow transplantation occurs.

At the moment, there are two types of bone marrow transplantation: allogeneic and autologous. When allogeneic transplantation, the bone marrow of another person is used, and in the autologous transplantation one uses its own. In fact, autologous transplantation is not, in fact, "transplantation" in the true sense of the word, and in a number of sources can be called "supportive bone marrow transplantation."

The task before removing the bone marrow is to get the hematopoietic cells contained in it. Preparation for bone marrow transplantation begins with bone marrow sampling from the donor, which, even before intensive treatment, is removed from the donor's femur bones, whomever they are, frozen and stored until use. Then, after the end of chemotherapy, either combined with radiotherapy, or carried out without it, the bone marrow is injected back into the body by the so-called "drop method". It's like a blood transfusion. The transplanted bone marrow with blood flow circulates through the body, and then settles in the cavities of the bones, where its subsequent growth begins and, in the long term, the process of hematopoiesis is restored.

If the patient is lucky, everything went well and the brain took root, then the patient, respectively, recovers. But not everything is so cloudless! The patient is threatened by two factors. First, there is always the possibility of rejection by the body of the transplant. With this you can cope by suppressing immunity with powerful medications. The second risk factor is that for 2-3 postoperative months the patient actually remains without the immune system. Even the slightest infection can become lethal, which, as they say, is avoided, the patient is placed in a special ward with special protective measures, where he is isolated from the outside world for the entire postoperative recovery period. However, even after leaving the hospital, it is necessary to carefully monitor the patient's health, and he, in turn, must regularly visit the doctors for testing. On the normal restoration of immunity after transplantation takes about a year, however, if the patient's state of health worsens, there may be a serious need for repeated hospitalization.