Would a person receiving a bone marrow transplant from his own stem cells need to be re-immunized against everything?
Yes. Antibody titers to vaccine-preventable diseases decline during the 1-4 years after either allogeneic (donor cells) or autologous (own cells) hematopoetic stem cell transplant (HSCT) if the recipient is not revaccinated. Virtually all HSCT recipients rapidly lose all T- and B-lymphocytes after conditioning (the chemotherapy and radiation regimen received just before the transplant), losing immune memory accumulated through a lifetime of exposure to infectious agents, environmental antigens, and vaccines. You can read more about this at, www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/downloads/b_hsct-recs.
Yes. Antibody titers to vaccine-preventable diseases decline during the 1-4 years after either allogeneic (donor cells) or autologous (own cells) hematopoetic stem cell transplant (HSCT) if the recipient is not revaccinated. Virtually all HSCT recipients rapidly lose all T- and B-lymphocytes after conditioning (the chemotherapy and radiation regimen received just before the transplant), losing immune memory accumulated through a lifetime of exposure to infectious agents, environmental antigens, and vaccines.
