Bone Marrow Transplant Treatment Options

More people trust us for bone marrow transplant than any other hospital in Oregon.

Only at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, doctors and scientists are working together to find better ways to treat blood cancers with bone marrow transplants. Here, you have access to the newest and most advanced bone marrow transplant treatments. Some of the country’s top blood disease specialists treat our patients, all in a new facility designed to meet the needs of bone marrow transplant patients.

No other hospital in Oregon:

• Performs bone marrow transplants with family, unrelated donor or cord blood
• Provides new treatments for patients who previously did not qualify for bone marrow transplant
• Performs bone marrow transplants for children
• Provides access to more clinical trials for new treatments
• Has follow-up clinics in central and southern Oregon

Bone marrow transplants treat the following diseases:

• Acute lymphoblastic leukemia
  
• Acute myelogenous leukemia 
• Chronic myelogenous leukemia
• Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
  
• Hodgkin's disease
  
• Non-Hodgkin’s disease
  
• Multiple myeloma
  
• Amyloidosis
• Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia
  
• Aplastic anemia
  
• Myelodysplastic syndrome
  
• Myelofibrosis
  
• Myeoproliferative disorder
  
• Germ cell tumor
  
• Sarcoma
  
• Lupus
• Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria
  

Types of transplants

The type of transplant you have depends on whether you use your own stem cells or whether you need cells from a donor.

Autologous transplant

An autologous transplant uses your own stem cells. You will have high-dose chemotherapy, radiation or both to treat your disease, but will need a transplant of your own cells to restore your body’s ability to make blood cells. Your blood stem cells are collected and frozen before you receive the high-dose therapy. They are given back to you as an infusion (solution) after the high-dose therapy. This type of transplant is sometimes called a stem cell transplant or stem cell rescue.

Allogeneic transplant

An allogeneic transplant uses cells from a donor. You will have high-dose therapy to treat your disease, followed by an infusion of blood stem cells from your donor’s blood or bone marrow. The donor cells provide you with new blood and a new immune system. If your donor is a relative, the transplant is called a related donor bone marrow transplant (BMT). If they are not related to you, it is called an unrelated donor BMT. Allogeneic transplants can be myeloablative (used with high-dose chemotherapy) or nonmyeloablative (used with a reduced dose of chemotherapy drugs).