This is an article that tells about how bone marrow transplants can help or save people with leukemia. It allow doctors to use more chemotherapy drugs.

This article explains how bone marrow transplants can save the life of one with leukemia. It is cancer of the body's blood-forming tissues, including the bone marrow and the lymphatic system. There are many types of leukemia and a lot of them involve white blood cells. They are very good at fighting infections but in humans with leukemia, the bone marrow produces abnormal white blood cells, which don't function properly.

A person can have different types of symptoms of leukemia that can include frequent or severe infections, fever or chills, persistent fatigue, weakness, losing weight without trying, bone pain or tenderness, swollen lymph nodes, enlarged liver or spleen, easy bleeding or bruising, recurrent nosebleeds, tiny red spots in your skin, and excessive sweating, especially that at night. This can help you to recognize it. The symptoms are more often vague and may look like the flu or other common illnesses.

Scientist don't know exactly what causes leukemia but think that it is a combination of geneticfactors and environmental factors. This is like many health problems. For example scientists think that becoming overweight is genetic since a higher percentage of children with weight problems come from parents with weight problems.

But with that same reasoning you can say that the religion that one becomes is genetic since children of parents that follow one religion tend to become that religion. So I say that children tend to eat a lot of the same foods that their parents eat and what people eat has the biggest effect on if they have weight problems or not. For example I grew up eating fried matza once a week. Most non-Jewish people ask me what is matzo is and I tell them unleavened bread.

Chemotherapy can severely damage the bone marrow, which is where new blood cells are formed. This could lead to life-threatening infections, bleeding, and other problems due to low blood cell counts. The most common type of transplant to help leukemia is the stem cell transplant (SCT). By a person getting this one can get higher levels of chemotherapy. They try to get a tissue type that closely matches the patient’s.

Tissue type is based on certain substances on the surface of cells inside of the body. These substances can cause the immune system to react against the cells. Therefore, the closer a tissue match is between the donor and the recipient, the better the chance the transplanted cells will work and begin making new blood cells.

Because of all the above the best donor is often a close relative, such as a brother or sister, or a child if they are a good match. If no close relatives match, stem cells might be available from a matched unrelated donor (MUD), an unrelated volunteer whose tissue type matches that of the patient. But the use of stem cells from a matched unrelated donor is linked to more complications. So you now know a little more about how bone marrow transplants can help with leukemia.

Bone marrow transplants can also help with diseases other than leukemia which result in bone marrow failure like aplastic anemia and other genetic system or immune diseases. So now you know a little more about how bone marrow transplants can help people with with leukemia. This is a vast subject and there is a lot to know so you should welcome any help that you can get in learning about it.

There is a great deal of information about the human body and how to treat diseases. But there is a lot more that needs to be learned and that is why research is being done everday and they are discovering new things.

Article Tags: Bone Marrow Transplants, Bone Marrow, Marrow Transplants, Blood Cells, Weight Problems, Tissue Type