What is the full form of BMT
BMT: Bone Marrow Transplant
BMT stands for Bone Marrow Transplant. It refers to a medical procedure in which diseased or damaged bone marrow is replaced with healthy bone marrow. It is mainly performed to treat blood cancers like leukemia, Thalassemia, lymphomas and in the treatment of various other types of cancers.
Bone marrow is a soft, spongy tissue inside your bones that contains stem cells. These stem cells differentiate into different types of blood cells like WBCs, RBCs and platelets. Its main job is to produce blood cells or blood components.
Types of Bone Marrow Transplant:
Autologous transplant: In this transplant, the person’s own stem cells are used in the transplant. So, before starting this procedure, a person’s stem cells are harvested and stored. Then chemotherapy and radiation therapy is used to kill the cancer cells. After the high doses of chemo or radiation, the harvested stem cells are transferred back to the body of the person.
Allogeneic transplant: In this transplant, stem cells of a donor are transferred to the recipient. There should be a close genetic match between donor and recipient. This type of transplant is needed when a person’s bone marrow cells (stem cells) are damaged due to a medical condition. The success of an allogeneic transplant depends on how closely the donor cells match with the recipient cells. A brother or sister is most likely to be a good match in allogeneic bone marrow transplants.
Syngenic transplant: In this transplant, the recipient receives stem cells from his or her identical twin. The donor cells are not rejected by the recipient’s body and the recipient’s cells are also not attacked by the donor cells.