Bone marrow transplant 5
Potential benefits of bone marrow transplants
Sorry, folks, no real numbers here. I’ll keep searching.
Bone marrow transplantation has varying degrees of success, particularly when the donation does not come from the patient or an identical twin. Allogeneic transplantation is more likely to be effective in younger people. After the age of 30, vulnerability to graft–versus–host disease (GVHD) rises rapidly, especially in those between age 40 and 55.
When effective, bone marrow transplants can help treat a number of cancers, including:
- Acute leukemia. Younger patients tend to fare better than older patients, although there are success stories in all age groups. Patients with acute leukemia who have relapsed after trying other treatments usually find a bone marrow transplant to be their best option for a possible cure.
- Chronic granulocytic leukemia. Bone marrow transplants are the treatment of choice for patients who have this disease and have an HLA–matched brother or sister.
- Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. These types of tumors are among the best candidates for a combination of high–dose chemotherapy or radiation combined with a bone marrow transplant. They include two subsets:
- Aggressive non–Hodgkin’s lymphomas. While these diseases often can be cured by other therapies, bone marrow transplants are often effective in treating any later relapse of these diseases.
- Low–grade non–Hodgkin’s lymphomas. Allogeneic transplants have increasingly been used to treat this disease, with a large proportion of patients reportedly responding well to the treatment.
- Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Patients usually do well using standard therapies to treat this disease. However, patients who do relapse often have poor success with more standard therapy and appear to benefit from bone marrow transplants.
- Other blood cancers. Patients with hairy cell leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia have shown excellent responses to bone marrow transplants. Transplants also have been used to benefit some patients with multiple myeloma.
- Solid tumors. Transplants have been used successfully in a wide variety of carcinomas and sarcomas. However, some solid tumors – including lung cancers and gastrointestinal cancers – are not sensitive enough to high–dose chemotherapy and radiation to make transplants worthwhile.
- Solid tumors in children, particularly neuroblastomas, also can sometimes be effectively treated using bone marrow transplants.
Marie Godfrey, PhDÂ <!--break-->