In the autologous transplant, before you get cancer treatment, your stem cells are taken so that it won’t get destroy. It is removed from your bone marrow or blood and then frozen. It is given back to you after you get high doses of chemo and/or radiation the stem cells are thawed. Anti cancer drugs may be given to you or use other methods to reduce the number of cancer cells that may be present. Children are sometimes used for other cancer patients and are mainly used to treat some leukemias and lymphomas.
The allogeneic transplant comes from a closely matched donor. It is usually a family member like a brother or sister. A general registry may be used if there is no good match in the family. The placenta and umbilical cord of newborns blood is a newer source of stem cells. The number of stem cells is used more in small adults and children since in a unit of cord blood often is too low for large adults. The advantage to this method is that the donor stem cells can make their own immune cells that may help destroy any cancer cells that remain in the body. The bad news is that the patient may not take the donor’s stem cell. It is often used to treat certain types of leukemia, lymphomas, and other bone marrow disorders.
The last one is Syngeneic stem cell transplant. It comes from an identical twin which is rare. There is no cancer cell from the donor. But the bad news is that it won’t kill off all of the cancer cells. All of the cancer cells must be destroyed before it is put inside the patient.
