What is bone marrow transplantation and blood transplantation?
Bone marrow is the liquid inside of bones that contains a type of stem cell (called hematopoietic stem cell) that makes all types of blood cells. In certain situations, these stem cells may also be collected from blood itself. The transplantation process involves administration of chemotherapy, immune therapy, and/or radiation therapy followed by infusion of hematopoietic stem cells collected from bone marrow or blood in order to grow the spectrum of new blood cells. What diseases are treated with blood or bone marrow transplantation? Blood or bone marrow transplantation may be the best treatment for some life threatening cancerous and non-cancerous diseases. Examples of cancerous diseases include leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumors, and neuroblastoma. Non-cancerous diseases include aplastic anemia, thalassemia major, severe combined immune deficiency, and selected genetic disorders. Where does the blood or bone marrow come from for transplant purposes? The best source of blood or bone ma
