Bone marrow is the soft tissue inside bones, which produces the red and white blood cells and platelets, which are vital for the body’s immune functions. When certain diseases of the blood, like leukaemia, occurs, the high dose of chemotherapy used to destroy the cancer cells can also damage the normal blood cells, requiring a BMT.
One way of transplanting bone marrow is to take it from a donor’s hip bone, separate the stem cells and then infuse it into the patient’s veins. This will be naturally carried to the bone cavities, where it will generate fresh marrow. But this is a painful procedure and is done under anesthesia. But now after discovering that a good yield of stem cells can be harvested directly from blood, we use the method called Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplant (PBSCT) for drawing stem cells, which are then transplanted on the patient. Stem cells are taken from the...
