For leukemia patients, they are the last and only chance to save their lives. Bone marrow transplants. Over a billion of them have already been carried out in the world, over five hundred thousand in Europe. The Polish record was broken last year – 1500 hematopoietic cell transplants were performed in twelve months. The best European hematologists are meeting at the 42nd Congress of the European Society for Bone Marrow and Blood Transplantation (EBMT) in Valencia.
Bone marrow transplants have been carried out for almost sixty years, they were an experimental method for a long time, fortunately today they are almost routine, although not without risk. There are more and more indications for these treatments and their effectiveness is constantly improving. Also in Poland.
The number of bone marrow transplants has increased especially in recent years. In 2014, 53 percent more of them were made in Europe than ten years earlier. The number of allografts (from a foreign donor) has doubled. This is due to the marrow banks. There are already 26 million potential bone marrow donors in the world, including almost one million Poles. Hematopoietic stem cells obtained from them can be used in transplants to treat leukemias, lymphomas and myelomas.
In Poland, the first transplant from an unrelated donor was performed in 1997 by prof. Jerzy Hołowiecki at the Department of Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation in Katowice. Thirteen years earlier – on November 28, 1984 prof. Wiesław Jędrzejczak (present today at the congress in Valencia) carried out a family transplant with his team. The recipient of the marrow was then Ola Przybylska, she was six years old. The donor was her two years younger sister Katarzyna. A year later, the same team of doctors under the supervision of prof. Jędrzejczak, he performed the first autologous marrow transplant in Poland (using the patient’s own cells).
The source of hematopoietic cells can be bone marrow, peripheral blood, or umbilical cord blood. In recent years, however, the use of cells from peripheral blood has definitely prevailed. In the case of autologous transplants, as many as 99% of them are used. of these procedures, and in allogeneic transplants – in 75 percent.
Autologous (from own cells) transplants are most often performed in patients with multiple myeloma (48% of these procedures), Hodgkin’s lymphoma (Hodgkin’s disease) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (40%).
On the other hand, allografts from donor cells are used in acute leukemia (51%), cancers of the lymphatic system (18%), myelodysplastic syndromes (12%) and congenital and acquired bone marrow failure syndromes (11%).
The first bone marrow transplants were performed almost 60 years ago in the United States. Even 40 years ago it was an experimental method. Today, bone marrow transplantation is almost a routine method, although it is still not without risk, especially in some hematopoietic diseases such as myeloma (in the case of donor cell transplantation).
FACTS AND MYTHS ABOUT MEDULLARY TRANSLATION