Why are bone marrow and stem cell transplants used?
Bone marrow and/or stem cells are collected in preparation for a patient to undergo high-dose chemotherapy. High-dose chemotherapy destroys cancer cells, but also kills most of the bone marrow and stem cells, leaving the patient vulnerable to infection and bleeding. Giving the patient back the stem cells enables the body to regenerate its ability to make blood cells including cells of the immune system that are necessary to fight off disease. Up until recently, aggressive chemotherapy and stem cell transplants were used when other treatments had failed. By that time, patients were in fragile health and their tumors had developed resistance against chemotherapy. But now, physicians have begun using high-dose chemotherapy as a first step in therapy because chemotherapy is most effective against cancers in patients who haven’t been exposed to a lot of treatment. Therefore, stem cell or bone marrow transplants are now being used more frequently and earlier in cancer treatment than in prior
