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A blood or marrow transplant (BMT) resets your body’s ability to make healthy blood cells. First, you receive strong chemotherapy, total-body irradiation (TBI) or both. This is called conditioning. It weakens or destroys your cancer cells and bone marrow. Then a transplant replaces your damaged or destroyed blood-forming stem cells with healthy cells.
Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Care Tailored to You
You and your family are our top priority. At Fred Hutch Cancer Center, we offer comprehensive and compassionate care — personalized to you. You'll have access to the latest treatment options, clinical trials and supportive care services.
How a Blood or Marrow Transplant Can Treat Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
For non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), your physician may recommend a transplant if your first treatment does not put your NHL into complete remission or if your disease comes back. Transplant may be used for both slow-growing (indolent) and fast-growing (aggressive) subtypes of NHL. The goal is to cure the cancer.
Most transplant recipients with NHL have a transplant using stem cells from their own body. This is called an autologous transplant. We collect these cells from your circulating blood before conditioning.
If your lymphoma is very aggressive or chemotherapy did not shrink your tumors, you might have a transplant using stem cells from a donor instead. This is called an allogeneic transplant. The cells come from your donor’s blood or bone marrow or from umbilical cord blood donated by someone who has just given birth.
Why Choose Fred Hutch for a Blood or Marrow Transplant for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
Physicians and researchers at Fred Hutch Cancer Center pioneered blood and marrow transplants decades ago. The world’s first successful human BMT took place in the 1970s, when one of our physician-researchers, E. Donnall Thomas, MD, and his team developed the clinical use of transplants — and won a Nobel Prize for this work.
Each year since then, our physicians and researchers have made more discoveries. In the past few years alone, major advances have made transplants available for more people, such as those who are older or who might not have found a donor in the past. Today at Fred Hutch, we continue to refine transplant techniques and to develop new options.
When you come to Fred Hutch for a transplant, a team of experts will care for you. Your team will include a transplant oncologist, transplant nurse, physician assistant or advanced registered nurse practitioner, pharmacist, registered dietitian, team coordinator and social worker.
Common side effects of conditioning and transplant may include:
- Hair loss
- Nausea or loss of appetite
- Diarrhea
- Mouth sores (mucositis)
- Increased risk of infections
- Easy bruising or bleeding
- Fever
- Fatigue
In an allogeneic transplant, there’s also a risk that the donor’s cells will see the recipient’s healthy tissues as foreign. Then the donor’s cells may attack and damage the recipient’s body. This reaction, called graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), can cause a range of health problems. At Fred Hutch, we are experts in treating GVHD and the debilitating cases of GVHD are now rare.
Your Fred Hutch transplant team will provide extensive support to help you get ready for a transplant and deal with any side effects.
Before the transplant, you will need to choose a responsible family member or friend who can be your caregiver. They will stay with you during your treatment and recovery. The transplant team will teach you and your caregiver what to expect and how to handle concerns that might arise. We’ll help your caregiver prepare with classes that cover a range of topics about your care. We’ll also give you detailed written materials. And we’ll make sure you know how to reach us anytime you have questions.
Conditioning typically lasts about a week. Then you’ll have your transplant. After the transplant infusion, your bone marrow and immune system need time to recover. If you had an autologous transplant, using your own cells, you can expect your initial recovery to take about one month. If you had an allogeneic transplant using donor cells, you can expect your initial recovery to take about three months. Your Fred Hutch transplant team will carefully monitor and support you and your caregiver until you’re ready to return to your referring physician’s care.