CancerCare - Marrow or Cord Blood Transplant as a Treatment Option

CancerCare is a national nonprofit organization that provides free, professional support services for anyone affected by cancer.

Yesterday, January 17th I listened in on a Telephone Education Workshop discussing transplant. There were over 900 people listening in on the call from all over the world!

A bone marrow or cord blood transplant (also called a BMT) replaces diseased blood-forming cells with healthy cells. Diseases that may be treated with a bone marrow or cord blood transplant include: Leukemias and lymphomas, Multiple myeloma and other plasma cell disorders, Severe aplastic anemia, Sickle cell disease, and Myelodysplastic syndromes

I wanted to share with you some of the information that I learned:

There are two types of transplant:

• Autologous - stem or blood cells are collected from an individual and are given back to the same individual. Also know as "full-dose" or traditional transplant.
• Allogeneic - stem or blood cells are collected from another individual (donor). Also called "reduced-intensity" or mini-transplant.

Things to consider when thinking about transplant as an option: disease type, timing during treatment, age, any other medical problems, and reactions to prior treatments.

Advances in treatment have improved outcome for transplant:

• Improvement in supportive care such as growth factors to encourage blood cell growth and recovery of white blood cell counts.
• New antibiotics
• Anti-fungal agents
• For allogeneic transplants, donor options have improved - donors can be someone other than a patient's relative (although relatives are preferred).

One risky side effect of transplant is Graft vs. Host Disease (GVHD). In GVHD, the donor immune cells (T-cells) recognize the patient's cells as foreign and try to attack it. It can happen anywhere in the patient's body and its severity can range from mild to life-threatening.

As volunteers, you should keep in mind that the patient is away from home for an extended amount of time (usually several weeks). In some cases, a patient who has come to NYP for a transplant may live somewhere far away because a transplant center is not available near their home. That means that friends and family have to travel long distances to see their loved one. As volunteers, you lead an important role of being there for the patient when they are alone during this difficult time.