![]() ![]() Read more about the risks of stem cell transplants. Your treatment team will discuss the risks of treatment with you beforehand. You'll probably need to stay in hospital throughout the treatment.Ĭonditioning can cause a number of unpleasant side effects, such as sickness, hair loss and tiredness. The conditioning process usually lasts about a week or 2. This means medicine can be passed into your body without the need for lots of injections. stop your immune system working – this reduces the risk of the transplant being rejectedĪs part of the conditioning treatment, you'll be given a range of medicines, so a tube called a central line will usually be inserted into a large vein near your heart.destroy existing bone marrow cells – to make room for the transplanted tissue.Treatment with high doses of chemotherapy and sometimes radiotherapy will be needed before the stem cells can be transplanted. However, the area where the needle is inserted may be painful afterwards and you'll have marks on your skin where it was inserted (usually one on each side). This is done under a general anaesthetic, so you'll be asleep and will not feel any pain while it's carried out. The needle may need to be inserted into several parts of your hip to ensure enough bone marrow is obtained. Removing a bone marrow sampleĪn alternative method of collecting stem cells is to remove around a litre of bone marrow from your hip bone using a needle and syringe. It takes around 3 to 4 hours and may need to be repeated the next day if not enough cells are removed the first time. This procedure is not painful and is done while you're awake. Blood is removed from one arm and passed through a filter, before being returned to the body through the other arm. If there are enough cells, veins in each arm will be connected by tubes to a cell separator machine. ![]() On the 5th day, a blood test will be carried out to check there are enough circulating stem cells. To boost the number of stem cells in the blood, medicine that stimulates their production will be given for about 4 days beforehand. The most common way to harvest stem cells involves temporarily removing blood from the body, separating out the stem cells, and then returning the blood to the body. If this is not possible, stem cells from a donor's blood or bone marrow will usually be used. It may be possible to remove stem cells from your own blood or bone marrow and transplant them later after any damaged or cancerous cells have been removed.
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