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What is a stem cell transplant?
Stem cell transplantation is a procedure that replaces cancerous, abnormal, or damaged stem cells with healthy stem cells. This procedure is sometimes called a bone marrow transplant. Most transplants use peripheral blood stem cells, which are immature stem cells in the bloodstream, but some transplants use bone marrow or cord blood stem cells. If you receive a stem cell transplant, your health care provider may use your own healthy stem cells or donated stem cells. Healthcare providers use this procedure to treat certain types of cancer, blood disorders, and autoimmune diseases.
Are stem cell transplants common?
The International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research Center collects data from transplant centers. According to the latest data, 22,000 stem cell transplants were performed in 2020. Procedures using peripheral blood stem cells were more common than procedures performed using bone marrow or umbilical cord blood.
What types of stem cell transplants are there?
The two types are allogeneic, which uses donated stem cells, and autologous, which uses your own healthy stem cells. Autologous stem cell transplants are slightly more common than allogeneic stem cell transplants.
Who will need this treatment?
Each year, approximately 18,000 people in the United States learn that they have a disease that can be treated with a stem cell transplant. Stem cell transplantation is usually done when other treatments are ineffective or when symptoms return after treatment. Health care providers may use stem cell transplants to treat many types of cancer, including some tumors, blood cancers, blood disorders, and some autoimmune diseases.
blood cancer
Health care providers may use stem cell transplants when other treatments have not worked or when the blood cancer has returned. For example, health care providers can use this procedure to treat the following blood cancers:
blood diseases
Blood disorders are conditions in which parts of the blood no longer function properly. Health care providers may use stem cell transplants to treat:
- Aplastic anemia.
- Sickle cell anemia.
- Severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome.
- Thalassemia.
Other conditions
Healthcare providers may use stem cell transplants for the autoimmune disease relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis or for testicular germ cell tumors that have come back after chemotherapy.
Who is a candidate for a stem cell transplant?
Healthcare providers commonly use stem cell transplants to treat life-threatening cancers and blood disorders. Unfortunately, not everyone with these conditions is a candidate for this surgery. Factors that providers consider include:
- your overall health. For example, people receiving stem cell transplants undergo intensive chemotherapy before treatment. This is conditioning. Your health care provider will assess whether you can handle the side effects of conditioning. It also takes into account whether the side effects of stem cell transplantation can be addressed.
- your medical condition. Not all cancers and blood disorders respond to stem cell transplants.
- previous treatment. Some treatments can affect transplant success.
- Source of healthy stem cells. If your health care provider is unable to use your own healthy stem cells to perform an autologous stem cell transplant, they will look for a donor with an exact or near match. That search begins with your immediate family. Your provider may check stem cell registries, Internet databases where you can find matching stem cells donated by the public. If enough donated cells are not found, stem cell transplantation cannot be used to treat the disease.
