From what I understand: a bone-marrow transplant is a procedure that allows you to give a higher dose of chemotherapy. The chemo kills the cancer (hopefully) and then the bone-marrow transplant rescues the patient, because the dose is so high it also kills off part of the patient's immune system and a replacement is required.
A bone marrow transplant is also (at least in part) a way of essentially rebooting the immune system (my friend Karen Williams just had one as a treatment for MS--the notion being that you're resetting the immune response to its original factory settings. This is helpful when you're dealing with blood-based cancers, but also, as you say, as a way of permitting higher chemo doses.
It's because the cancer is IN the marrow. it's no good to put fresh cancer-free marrow donation into the bone if cancer lurking there will just contaminate it immediately. So you need the chemo to kill ALL cancer (and most, if not all, of the marrow.) And then you replace it with donation marrow.
As I understand it. Heaven knows I am not an expert on this.
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Date: 2017-11-25 04:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-25 04:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-28 02:07 am (UTC)As I understand it. Heaven knows I am not an expert on this.