Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation

Hematopoietic cell transplants Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation is a rapidly evolving technique that offers a potential cure for hematologic cancers ( leukemias, lymphomas, myeloma) and other hematologic disorders... read more using cells from bone marrow, blood, or less often, umbilical cord blood cells are given after high- or moderate-dose chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. Donors can be the person with cancer (an autotransplant) or a human leukocyte antigen (HLA)–matched related or unrelated person (an allotransplant—see also Overview of Cancer Therapy Overview of Cancer Therapy Curing cancer requires eliminating all cells capable of causing cancer recurrence in a person's lifetime. The major modalities of therapy are Surgery (for local and local-regional disease) Radiation... read more ). Typically, such transplants are reserved for patients with a high risk that conventional therapies will fail or in whom initial therapy has failed.

Autotransplants are used to treat lymphomas, plasma cell myeloma, and rare solid cancers such as testis cancer Testicular Cancer Testicular cancer begins as a scrotal mass, which is usually not painful. Diagnosis is by ultrasonography. Treatment is with orchiectomy and sometimes lymph node dissection, radiation therapy... read more , Wilms and Ewing sarcomas, and neuroblastomas Neuroblastoma Neuroblastoma is a cancer arising in the adrenal gland or less often from the extra-adrenal sympathetic chain, including in the retroperitoneum, chest, and neck. Diagnosis is confirmed by biopsy... read more . Very occasionally, they are used to treat leukemias.

Allotransplants are used to treat leukemias Overview of Leukemia Leukemia is a malignant condition involving the excess production of immature or abnormal leukocytes, which eventually suppresses the production of normal blood cells and results in symptoms... read more and some lymphomas.