One of the most complex medical procedures is the bone marrow transplantation. It is a medical procedure which is performed for replacing the bone marrow that is damaged or destroyed by the infection, chemotherapy or diseases. This procedure transplants the blood stem cells that can travel to the bone marrow where they can produce new blood cells for promoting growth of new marrow. What is the bone marrow? The bone marrow is a fatty spongy tissue which is located inside your bones. It helps in creating platelets, white blood cells and red blood cells.
Why bone marrow transplant is needed?
Bone marrow transplantation is needed when the patient’s bone marrow is not healthy enough to perform its functions in the right way. This can be due to chronic infections, cancer treatments and other diseases. Some of the reasons why you may need bone marrow transplant are – cancers that affect the bone marrow, damaged bone marrow due chemotherapies and aplastic anemia.
The complication of bone marrow transplant
A bone marrow transplant procedure is one of the major and complicate procedures that can increase a lot of risk. Some of the side effects that you may experience are –
- Nausea
- Headache
- Drop in the blood pressure level
- Chills
- Pain in muscles
- Fever
- Shortness of breath
Though these side effects are short-lived, but this procedure can cause some serious complications. These complications can develop based on several factors such as disease you are treating for, your age, type of transplant and your overall health.
Types of bone marrow transplant
There are mainly two types of bone marrow transplants that you need to know about:
- Autologous transplants
This type of transplant involves the use of the person’s own stem cells. This procedure involves harvesting of your stem cells before it begins to damage the cells. After the treatment is done, the cells of your own bone marrow are returned to your body. Though is the best procedure, it is not always available. It can only be performed if you have healthy bone marrow.
- Allogeneic Transplant
This type of transplant involves the use of the cells from a donor. The donor must be a close genetic match which has to be compatible with yours. But finding the right match is not always available and you can face a lot of issues in finding a compatible donor. The success of the allogeneic transplant depends entirely on how closely the stem cells of the donor match with yours.
Final Words
These are some of the important data and information that you need to know when it comes to bone marrow transplant procedure. The procedure is one of the major ones in the medical world. Even the most experienced physicians take all the essential precautions before performing this. If you want to be the donor of the stem cells, then you need to keep all these important things in mind including the side effects too. But whether you are eligible for donating or not will be the physician’s final decision.
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