Does bone marrow transplantation cause early aging?
First of all, I hope the transplant goes well for your friend. My son has AML leukemia and he is on the transplant list waiting for a matching donor. What you might not know about a bone marrow transplant (BMT) is that there is no actual surgery involved. First, strong doses of chemotherapy are used to rid the body of the problem bone marrow that may still be cancerous or producing faulty white blood cells. Then, the donor bone marrow is given through a transfusion over several hours. As a result of this extremely high dose of chemotherapy, women often do become infertile. Although not every woman becomes infertile, it happens in the vast majority of BMT patients. Men, many times, also have problems with sterility after high doses of chemotherapy. As for the early aging, I haven’t heard of this before. I’m not sure exactly what she’s referring to but I can tell you that there’s nothing particularly beautiful about cancer or BMTs. During the time she’s going through chemotherapy, receiv
