What is an allogeneic bone marrow transplant?
An allogeneic bone marrow transplant is a transplant that uses bone marrow from someone else. (An autologous transplant uses the patient’s own bone marrow.) The donor may be a brother or sister, or someone who is completely unrelated. Allogeneic bone marrow transplants do two things. First, they increase the body’s ability to withstand high doses of chemotherapy, which means more cancer cells can be destroyed. Second, they supply the patient immune cells that can recognize cancer cells and destroy them — this is known as the immune effect. For some diseases, the high doses of chemotherapy are the most important part of treatment whereas with other conditions, it is the immune effect. For most diseases, though, effective treatment depends on careful combination of chemotherapy drugs with the introduction of immune cells.
