Stem cell transplantation is used in the treatment of malignant blood diseases such as blood cancer (leukemia). Patients receive their own blood stem cells backafter chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
Here you will find further information on autologous stem cell transplantation and specialists.
Unlike allogeneic stem cell transplants , autologous stem cell transplants give the patient back their own blood stem cells. Doctors have taken these at a suitable time, usually before chemotherapy or radiotherapy that damages the bone marrow.
The cell donor and cell recipient are therefore identical.
Stem cells are special cells that can transform into various other cell types @ Giovanni Cancemi /AdobeStock
A stem cell transplant is useful for people with malignant blood diseases.
This includes patients with:
In leukemia (blood cancer), blood formation in the bone marrow is severely restricted due to the disease or chemotherapy.
As a result, the immune system is often weakened. The body's own hematopoiesis can be severely reduced by leukemia or the therapy.
These patients therefore need new blood-forming cells, the hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells. In this case , a stem cell transplant is necessary after the tumor cells have been destroyed. The transplanted stem cells rebuild blood formation and the immune system.
Aggressive tumors of the hematopoietic system (leukemias) or some brain tumors require cell-damaging therapy in order to cure the cancer.
However, the blood-forming bone marrow is also damaged or completely destroyed. The patient then needs stem cells to build up a new bone marrow, blood and immune system.
In autologous stem cell transplants, doctors stimulate the patient's bone marrow to produce more blood-forming stem cells. This happens before radical chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
Doctors can harvest the stem cells directly from the bone marrow or from the blood. During the separation of the stem cells from the other blood cells (stem cell apheresis) , they also recognize and eliminate cancer cells with the help of specific antibodies.
This purification step is necessary to ensure that no cancer cells enter the body with the stem cells.
Once the stem cells have been harvested, high-dose chemotherapy or radiotherapy is administered. This also destroys the bone marrow so that patients lose their entire blood count and immune system.
At the end of the therapy, patients receive their purified autologous stem cells back via an infusion. These migrate into the bones and grow there to form new bone marrow.
This is why stem cell transplantation is also called bone marrow transplantation in common parlance .
Autologous stem cell transplantation is often the only chance for patients with blood cancer or lymph node cancer to recover @ Elroi /AdobeStock
If the patient forms blood cells independently after a few weeks and builds up the body's own immune system, there is a chance of recovery.
However, it is important that the newly formed blood cells do not contain any cancer cells. However, the recurrence rate for leukemia is comparatively high at up to 20 %.
Stem cell transplantation is a risky and very serious form of therapy.
The most common complications include
Most patients who are eligible for an autologous stem cell transplant suffer from leukemia.
Leukemia is primarily treated by specialists in the fields of hematology and oncology. In a broader sense, these two specializations belong to internal medicine.
It is important to ensure that those affected seek advice in specialized tumor centers. These are, for example, centers for haemato-oncology or stem cell transplantation centers. Many university hospitals in Germany have these specialized centers.
