Thalassemia Patients and Friends

Discussion Forums => Curing Thalassemia. Bone Marrow & Cord Blood Transplant => Topic started by: ama on July 15, 2013, 04:19:07 AM

Title: BMT or stem cell transplant
Post by: ama on July 15, 2013, 04:19:07 AM

What is the difference between stem cell transplant and bone marrow transplant?

Title: Re: BMT or stem cell transplant
Post by: EugenioLaMesa on August 17, 2013, 07:38:38 AM

I've noticed that there is often some confusion about this topic. Bone Marrow Transplant uses stem cells, and in many scientific papers on BMT have the words "stem cells" in the title:

- Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in thalassemia and sickle cell anemia
- T cell-depleted hla-haploidentical stem cell transplantation in thalassemia young patients
- Progress in hematopoietic stem cell transplantationas allogeneic cellular gene therapy in thalassemia [/li]

You can find a list of other papers in the Cure Thalassemia FAQ page:
www.curethalassemia.org/faq/ (http://www.curethalassemia.org/faq/)

Maybe for "stem cells" you meant "cord blood"?

Title: Re: BMT or stem cell transplant
Post by: Canadian_Family on August 17, 2013, 01:37:34 PM

In plain English, Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) and Stem Cell Transplant (STM) are not same.

BMT is a total replacement of the patient bone marrow with the matched bone marrow of the donor. (This process is much riskier than SMT).

SMT uses the technique to correct the default genes in the patient bone marrow without any donor intervention.

Title: Re: BMT or stem cell transplant
Post by: EugenioLaMesa on August 20, 2013, 01:18:06 PM

Quote from: Canadian_Family on August 17, 2013, 01:37:34 PM

In plain English, Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) and Stem Cell Transplant (STM) are not same.

BMT is a total replacement of the patient bone marrow with the matched bone marrow of the donor. (This process is much riskier than SMT).

SMT uses the technique to correct the default genes in the patient bone marrow without any donor intervention.

Thanks for your reply. I've double checked my previous answer with Dr. Pietro Sodani (Cure Thalassemia scientific coordinator, who has done more than 400 BMT) and he confirms that what I've written is correct. He says that you are probably talking about "stem cell gene therapy", while we do "stem cell transplantation" which is the "BMT".

This thread confirms me that there is some confusion on this topic, and we often receive questions from the Cure Thalassemia website of parents who ask "stem cell" vs "BMT" and we ask them to better clarify, they then explain that they mean "cord blood" vs "BMT", and that's why I wrote about cord blood.

Title: Re: BMT or stem cell transplant
Post by: Andy Battaglia on August 21, 2013, 02:04:30 AM

Yes, our friend Khalifa's son had both. His BMT failed but later on, stem cells were collected from the same donor's (the boy's sister) blood, and used for the stem cell transplant. Stem cells transplants are easier on the donor. Dr's Lucarelli and Sodani were the doctors that performed the procedure.