Bone Marrow Transplant

About Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces a patient's diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy blood-forming stem cells, used to treat conditions such as leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, aplastic anemia, and certain inherited blood disorders. In an autologous transplant, the patient's own stem cells are collected, stored, and reinfused after high-dose chemotherapy; in an allogeneic transplant, stem cells come from a matched donor, often a sibling or an unrelated donor identified through tissue-typing. Before the transplant, patients undergo a conditioning regimen of chemotherapy and sometimes radiation to clear diseased marrow and suppress the immune system, after which the stem cells are infused intravenously and travel to the bone marrow to begin producing new blood cells over the following two to four weeks. This period requires isolation in a specialized transplant unit to protect against infection while blood counts recover. Allogeneic transplant recipients also need medication to prevent graft-versus-host disease, where donor immune cells react against the recipient's tissues. India's transplant centers offer both autologous and allogeneic bone marrow transplantation with dedicated isolation facilities, and international patients typically plan for a stay of six to eight weeks to cover conditioning, transplant, and initial recovery.