Bone Marrow Transplant

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At Houston Methodist, our comprehensive approach brings together a wide variety of specialists with experience treating blood cancers to offer the most advanced treatment options, including bone marrow transplant, offered at our Texas Medical Center location. We also provide access to innovative cell therapy clinical trials that may not be available elsewhere.

 

If your leukemia, lymphoma or multiple myeloma treatment plan includes a bone marrow transplant, our specialized team guides you through every step of the process.

How a Bone Marrow Transplant Procedure Works

The need for a bone marrow transplant arises when high-dose chemotherapy or radiation is used to treat a blood cancer.

 

Important cells within the bone marrow, called stem cells, are quite sensitive to chemotherapy and radiation, which often limits the amount of these treatments a person can tolerate. A bone marrow transplant restores healthy stem cells within the bone marrow, making it possible for oncologists to use higher doses of chemotherapy or radiation to kill blood cancers.

 

The bone marrow transplant process varies slightly depending on the specific type of blood cancer you have. In some cases, your bone marrow may be restored using your own healthy stem cells collected prior to treatment. In other cases, you may receive stem cells from a donor who is a good match.

 

After high-intensity chemotherapy or radiation treatments are complete, the stem cells will be delivered into your bloodstream, through injections or infusion, and they will travel into the bone marrow and repopulate a healthy environment.

An Expert Team Dedicated to Bone Marrow Transplantation

Our team at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy works in collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital to offer bone marrow transplantation to both adults and children. Adult stem cell transplants are performed at Houston Methodist, while pediatric stem cell transplants are performed at Texas Children’s.

 

The center is also dedicated to research and rapidly translating novel bone marrow and stem cell advancements into clinical trials offered to patients in need.