How A Bone Marrow Transplant Is Performed

The bone marrow transplantation procedure is somewhat the same as blood transfusion. Whenever your doctor finds you are ready for the transplantation, the procedure will be started then.

In allogeneic transplant cases, the doctor harvests bone marrow cells from the donor one or some days before the bone marrow transplant procedure. But if your body’s cells are to be used then those will be procured from your stem cells.

From Where The Cell Are Collected

During the bone marrow transplant, blood cells are taken out from the hip bone with the help of a needle, here, both the hip bones are used for this purpose.  You might be thinking about how painful it might be? But doctors are very well aware of this and the patient is given anesthesia to keep him away from pain and let him fall asleep for a while.

Leukapheresis

In leukapheresis, the stem cells are needed to move into the bloodstream from bone marrow thus a donator is bestowed with five shots to enable his body to do so. After this, the blood is taken out via an intravenous layer, and stem cells are then collected from the white blood cells containing with the help of a machine that separates those white blood cells from the blood cancer bone marrow transplant.

A Central Venous Catheter, a kind of needle, is installed on the chest’s right upper portion. This needle will allow the liquid comprising the fresh stem cells (either donor’s or yours) to move directly into the heart. Then from the heart, the stem cells will be distributed to the whole body. Stem cells will flow via blood and then directly to the line marrow. After reaching the bone marrow the stem cell will stabilize there and start to thrive.

Bone Marrow transplantation isn’t a one-day game; the needle will be left there so that doctors don’t need to install it again when doing the next session of the transplant. Several sessions are performed to make sure that the new stem cells establish themselves well and integrate completely into the body. This process is called engraftment.

This needle isn’t only for a blood transfusion but also for liquids and nutrients. It is obvious for the body to show some reaction as new stem cells aren’t familiar with it thus you will be given some medications to tackle this reaction if it occurs and aid the new cells to settle. The better you take care and precautions the better your body will recover.

You’ll not be discharged from the hospital soon because the doctors need to look upon you if any complications occur.

AML Bone Marrow Transplant isn’t as big a surgery as it seems to be while listening but is a critical one. There are five-year survival chances in 65% of people who have gone through a bone marrow transplant and this is quite a good performance rate.

The world is moving towards more technical things and in the future, who knows if a good technology is made which will make this surgery easy and less painful!

Contact Us:

Gift of Life Marrow Registry

Address: 800 Yamato Rd suite 101 Boca Raton, FL

Phone: (800) 962-7769

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