Jennifer, age 17 Bone marrow transplantation is a procedure used as supportive treatment for some children and teenagers with leukemia, lymphoma or solid tumours. Bone marrow is the spongy, red tissue in the centre of bones. It is where blood cells are formed from very young cells called stem cells . Intensive chemotherapy can injure the bone marrow, leaving it permanently unable to make blood cells. A bone marrow transplant restores the bone marrow.
Bone marrow is collected by a process called harvesting .
Usually bone marrow is removed from the hip bones, where there is an abundance of stem cells. It is then injected into the patient intravenously like a blood transfusion. The transfused stem cells travel via the blood stream to the centres of the bones, where they begin to produce normal blood cells. There are two main sources of bone marrow for transplantation. Autologous bone marrow is the patient's own marrow that was removed when the disease was in remission.