My husband has to have a stem cell transplant for lymphoma?!
Question: i would like some serious answers on the procedure
Answers: i would like some serious answers on the procedure
He will be irradiated to get rid of all his haematopoietic cells.
Donor stem cells will be injected into his circulation.
They will implant into the bone marrows themselves.
Docotrs will test for the efficiency of implantation.
I was thinking of putting my name on the stem cell register. Though it's a rough time now, but I'll get round to it.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=s...
http://www.marrow.org is the National Marrow Donors Program. It will give you brief details on the transplant. You need to know if it will be autologous, allogenic, or cord blood. The differences are where the cells come from. 'Auto' uses his own stem cells or marrow. 'Allo' uses a donor, could be related or not. And 'Cord Blood' uses the cord blood and placenta donated after a healthy live birth.
He will undergo high dose chemo and probably high dose full body radiation called 'irradiation'. It is called that because it is 'irradicating' the existing bone marrow.
He will 0 immune system until the transplant engrafts.
He will be in the hospital for about 6 weeks, and then in daily outpatient clinic for about another 6 weeks.
I went through transplant last summer for leukemia if you would like to talk on a personal level.
Interesting facts:
Look up 'chimera' especially on wikipedia. His blood type could change if his donor is a different type. And after transplant engraftment, his blood will have the dna of his donor, not his own.
This situation was featured on an ep of CSI. Its one of those things most people think is just tv, but is in fact real.