Autologous Stem Cell Transplant

Autologous = Self Donor. In this procedure, the patient's own stem cells are collected and frozen. At a later time, the patient is admitted to the hospital to undergo intensive treatment with chemotherapy or radiation. After this intensive therapy, the previously collected stem cells are transplanted back into the patient in a manner similar to a regular blood transfusion. This autologous transplant procedure helps patients overcome dangerous side effects resulting from the intensive treatment's destruction of white and red blood cells and platelets. Without new stem cells, patients would have too few white cells to ward off a life-threatening infection. They would also develop anemia because of low numbers of red cells and bleeding problems caused by too few platelets, which help the blood to clot.

Why High-Dose Therapy?

Certain cancers can respond to chemotherapy with a decrease in the number of cancerous cells with every cycle of chemotherapy. However, sometimes a point is reached where a small number of residual cancer cells remain that do not respond as well to the standard repeated doses of chemotherapy, particularly those of blood malignancies such as leukemia and lymphoma. These cells may respond to higher doses of chemotherapy. As long as patients receive adequate stem-cell support, chemotherapy doses several times higher than the conventional maximum can show impressive results and have few side effects. In appropriate candidates, high-dose chemotherapy with bone marrow or peripheral blood transplant has improved "cure" rates for both leukemia and lymphoma.

Even when high doses of chemotherapy with stem cell support do not "cure" certain cancers, they often can cause the cancer cells to be severely depleted and suppressed. Clinical trials have shown that diseases like multiple myeloma and follicular lymphoma, which usually involve the bone marrow, can be controlled for longer periods using higher doses of chemotherapy. This also can help in certain forms of amyloidosis where the overproduction of protein by plasma cells in the bone marrow leads to systemic disease.  As a result, you may hear that the goal of some autologous transplant procedures is "disease control" rather than "cure."

For more information, please call the Temple Bone Marrow Transplant Program at 215-214-3122.

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