Haem: Bone Marrow Transplantation Flashcards
Which organ in the body is most resistant to radiation?
CNS
NOTE: bone marrow is very vulnerable to radiation
What is the main cellular marker of stem cells?
CD34
What is the risk of dying from bone marrow transplant?
More than 50%
It is the most expensive and risky elective procedure
Outline the process of autologous stem cell transplantation.
- Growht factor is given to the patient to stimulate the production of cells from the bone marrow
- Cells are sampled from the patient’s bone marrow (some of them will be CD34+ stem cells)
- These are preserved in a freezer
- High-dose chemotherapy is given to the patient to eradicate their bone marrow
- Stem cells are re-infused
What are the most common reasons for autologous stem cell transplantation?
- Myeloma
- Lymphoma
- CLL
When is allogeneic bone marrow transplantation used?
Acute leukaemia, chronic leukaemia, myeloma, lymphoma, bone marrow failure, congenital immune or haematological conditions
What are some advantages of allogenic vs autologous HSCT
Autologous
* No GvHD
* No need to wait for match
* No risk of rejection
Allogenic
* Graft vs tumour effect (graft immune cells kill residual cancer cells)
* Reduced risk of disease recurrence (which can happen in autologous HSCT)
List some parameters used to gauge outcome of transplantation techniques.
- Overall survival
- Disease-free survival
- Transplant-related mortality
- Relapse incidence
State an equation that relates the probability of having a sibling with a matching tissue type to the number of siblings a patient has.
Probability of match = 1 — (3/4)number of siblings
NOTE: there is a 25% chance that your sibling has the same tissue type as you
What are the main classes of HLA based on?
- Serological reactions (e.g. HLA-A)
- It can be increasingly specified by DNA sequencing
HLA molecules relevent for transplantation
HLA-A, B, C : Class I - Present to CD8+ (cytotoxic T cells)
HLA-DP, DQ, DR: Class II - Present peptide to CD4+ (Helper T cells)
6 HLAs, 2x Parents = Match rated /12
Name three ways of harvesting stem cells.
- Bone marrow sampling
- Peripheral blood sampling
- Umbilical cord stem cells
Why is bone marrow sampling a difficult process?
- It involves anaesthetising the patient and sampling bone marrow from the pelvis
- Puncturing the bone causes damage and only sampling a small number of stem cells means that re-puncturing of the bone is necessary
Outline the process of peripheral blood sampling for stem cells.
- Hormones (e.g. G-CSF) is given to stimulate granulocyte production
- This leads to the bone marrow producing some stem cells along with the granulocytes
- G-CSF is given for 5 days and stem cells are harvested on the 5th day
- Apheresis - the donor is connected to a centrifuge which spins the blood, removes the white cell component, reassembles the red cells and plama and reinfuses it into the patient
When are autologous stem cell transplants suitable
In Myeloma - Elderly - cant handle GvHD
Acute Leukaemia
Solid tumours
Germ cell tumours
Lymphoma
CLL