For every five adults who develop leukemia, four are expected to die because they are either too old to undergo bone marrow transplantation or cannot find a matching donor. Only 10 percent of candidates for bone marrow transplantation have a sibling with matching marrow cells. The remainder currently must turn to the National Bone Marrow Registry to find a match. The first-year mortality rate for patients with a related donor match is 20 percent. That jumps to 40 percent for patients who have received marrow cells from an unrelated donor and are considered a good risk.
Bone marrow is the tissue inside bones where blood cells are manufactured.
These cells include white blood cells, which are responsible for fighting infection and disease. The development of leukemia, lymphomas and other cancers occurs when these disease fighters lose their ability to recognize and destroy the abnormal cancer cells. Patients with cancers for which bone marrow transplantation may be an option first undergo standard chemotherapy treatment to put their disease into remission. Because relapse of the cancer occurs in as many as 80 percent of the cases, a matching bone marrow donor is often sought while the patient remains free of the cancer. When the disease reoccurs, patients who have matching donors and are eligible for a bone marrow transplant receive a combination of high-dose chemotherapy and radiation to kill all their diseased bone marrow, including the cancer cells.