After giving high-dose therapy, treating the disease, and ablating the marrow, BMT salvage is accomplished by infusing the patient with new marrow. If the marrow is successfully incorporated into the patient, the transplant is termed engrafted . Alternatively, the patient's immune system may destroy the new marrow, a process termed graft rejection . If the disease does not involve the marrow, as in lymphoma or solid tumors, or if the disease involving the marrow is in remission, patients may donate their own marrow, providing autologous transplants. In such cases, marrow is extracted and stored prior to chemotherapy.
Autologous transplants are more common than allogeneic transplants.
In both allogeneic and autologous BMT, cells are harvested by aspiration through a needle inserted into the marrow of the iliac crest. Peripheral stem-cell transplantation differs from autologous BMT in the method of collecting stem cells for reinfusion. In peripheral stem-cell transplant, stem cells are extracted from the peripheral blood by apheresis, which is similar to the process used to collect platelets from donors. Several donation sessions are usually necessary to collect sufficient material for transplantation. Imaging in BMT patients relates to complications of the procedure, complications of high-dose therapy, proliferative disorders following BMT, or infections occurring in the immunocompromised patient.