Bone Marrow Transplant Graft Types
There are two methods of transplanting a healthy bone marrow to a patient: autologous and allogeneic.
Antalogous HSCT takes haematopoietic stem cells from the patient and is stored in a freezer. Then the patient undergoes chemotherapy to get rid of the patient’s cancer cells. Then the stored stem cells will be returned to the patient’s body. Advantages of this method include lower risk of graft rejection and occurrence of graft-versus-host-disease. Disadvantage include a higher probability of relapse.
Allogeneic HSCT takes healthy stem cells from a healthy donor and is transplanted to the patient. In this case, the donor must undergo several tests to see if his tissue type matches with the patient.