A bone marrow transplant is a procedure that infuses healthy blood stem cells into your body to replace your damaged or diseased bone marrow. A bone marrow transplant is also called a stem cell transplant.
A bone marrow transplant may be necessary if your bone marrow stops working and doesn't produce enough healthy blood cells.
Bone marrow transplants may use cells from your own body (autologous transplant) or from a donor (allogeneic transplant).
Mayo Clinic's approach
Types
- Allogeneic stem cell transplant
- Autologous stem cell transplant
Why it's done
A bone marrow transplant may be used to:
- Safely allow treatment of your condition with high doses of chemotherapy or radiation by replacing or rescuing bone marrow damaged by treatment
- Replace diseased or damaged marrow with new stem cells
- Provide new stem cells, which can help kill cancer cells directly
Bone marrow transplants can benefit people with a variety of both cancerous (malignant) and noncancerous (benign) diseases, including:
- Acute leukemia
- Adrenoleukodystrophy
- Aplastic anemia
- Bone marrow failure syndromes
- Chronic leukemia
- Hemoglobinopathies
- Hodgkin's lymphoma
- Immune deficiencies
- Inborn errors of metabolism
- Multiple myeloma
- Myelodysplastic syndromes
- Neuroblastoma
- Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
- Plasma cell disorders
- POEMS syndrome
- Primary amyloidosis
