Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant

‘Bone marrow’ is the spongy material in the centre of our bones. It contains stem cells (young cells), which give rise to all types of blood cells. ‘Bone marrow transplant’ is a process by which child’s diseased bone marrow is destroyed by medicines (called conditioning regimen), and then replaced by healthy stem cells. These stem cells can be collected/filtered from a healthy donor (allogeneic transplant) or from the patient itself (autologous transplant), and then infused in the patient like a blood transfusion. Bone marrow transplant is not a surgical procedure. Common indications of bone marrow transplant in children are:

• Relapsed/refractory cancers e.g. Relapse blood cancer (ALL or AML), lymphomas, neuroblastoma
• Thalassemia
• Sickle cell anemia
• Aplastic anemia
• Inherited bone marrow failure syndromes eg. Fanconi anemia
• Primary immunodeficiency disorders e.g. severe combined immunodeficiency disorder (SCID)