Allogeneic Transplant
at the Rush Bone Marrow Transplant Center

Welcome to our step-by-step guide to allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. This area of the site provides information, including pictures, about the steps involved in undergoing a bone marrow transplant. It is designed to give patients, their families and their friends a better understanding of what to expect throughout the process.

What is an allogeneic bone marrow transplant?

An allogeneic bone marrow transplant is a transplant that uses bone marrow from someone else. (An autologous transplant uses the patient’s own bone marrow.) The donor may be a brother or sister, or someone who is completely unrelated.

Allogeneic bone marrow transplants do two things. First, they increase the body’s ability to withstand high doses of chemotherapy, which means more cancer cells can be destroyed. Second, they supply the patient immune cells that can recognize cancer cells and destroy them — this is known as the immune effect. For some diseases, the high doses of chemotherapy are the most important part of treatment whereas with other conditions, it is the immune effect. For most diseases, though, effective treatment depends on careful combination of chemotherapy drugs with the introduction of immune cells.

The following list details the step by step process of allogeneic transplantation:

• Chemotherapy for Allogeneic Transplant Patients
• Pre-Transplant Testing
• Insurance Approval
• Pre-Transplant Testing
• About the Central Line
• The Conditioning Regimen
• The Transplant
• Graft-Versus-Host Disease Prevention and Engraftment
• Recovering from the Transplant and Getting Back to Normal

Interesting in knowing more about our bone marrow transplant program? Visit the home page for the Bone Marrow Transplant Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois.