Bone marrow transplants are a procedure in which the patient’s cancerous bone marrow is destroyed and replaced with healthy marrow. BMTs are used to treat diagnosed leukemia patients, aplastic anemia, lymphomas such as Hodgkin’s disease, multiple myeloma, and immune deficiency disorders.

Bone marrow transplants are used in conjunction to intense chemotherapy or radiation therapy treatments where a patient’s healthy bone marrow is removed and stored so that a much higher dose of drugs or radiation can be given, which would otherwise damage healthy bone marrow. After the aggressive radiation treatment is completed, the healthy marrow is re-transplanted by IV infusion where the bone marrow cells circulate through the bloodstream to the bone marrow.

There are three different types of transplants—autologous (an individual’s own bone marrow, saved before treatment, is introduced), allogeneic (marrow from a donor), or syngeneic (marrow donated by an identical twin). Special blood tests are conducted to determine whether or not the donor’s (allogeneic) bone marrow matches the patient’s.

Regardless of where the BMT is autologous, allogeneic, or sygeneic the procedure used to collect the marrow – the bone marrow harvest – is the identical. The bone marrow harvest will take place in a hospital operating room, under anesthesia. While the patient is under anesthesia, a needle is inserted into the cavity of the rear hip bone (iliac crest) where a quantity of bone marrow is extracted. Several skin punctures on each hip and bone punctures are usually required to extract the requisite amount of bone marrow. There are no surgical incisions or stitches involved—just skin punctures where the needle was inserted. There will be some soreness at the harvest site.