Bone marrow donation is a life-giving gift you can provide for people suffering from such medical conditions as leukemia (blood cancer) and multiple myeloma (bone marrow cancer characterized by bleeding and back pain). Bone marrow refers to the...
Donating bone marrow is a confidential procedure that carefully selects the best donor match for a patient. The steps and requirements to donating are for the health and safety of the patient and donor. According to the 2010 statistics published...
The American Cancer society estimates that approximately 65,000 people will be diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, as of 2009. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is a cancer that starts in immune system cells known as lymphocytes. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma...
Follicular lymphoma, also known as center cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is a cancer that affects the b-lymphocytes. B-cell lymphocytes are the white blood cells that help defend the body against illness. Follicular describes the type of cell the...
According to The Mayo Clinic, individuals who donate bone marrow undergo a brief operation in which the bone marrow is harvested from the pelvic bones. The National Marrow Donor Program has set forth specific guidelines to indicate who is eligible...
In healthy people, the body forms platelets and white and red blood cells from stem cells that are produced by the bone marrow. If you have certain diseases, such as leukemia, your bone marrow may not make enough of these immune cells to help you...
Bone marrow transplantation is a treatment for leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma and various immunodeficiency disorders. Since the adverse side effects of this treatment are so extreme, it is usually attempted when other treatments have...
A bone marrow transplant was at one time considered an experimental treatment. Today it is routinely done as a form of treatment for various types of cancers including different types of leukemia, lymphoma and aplastic anemia. Bone marrow...
As the National Marrow Donor Program explains, one of the first aspects of receiving a bone marrow transplant is finding suitable donor cells. This involves finding bone marrow of the right HLA variety. HLA describes proteins that are found on the...
For some to donate their bone marrow, their cells have to be similar to those of the recipient. In order to match up donors and recipients, physicians look at a series of molecules that are found on the surface of the blood cells called HLA...
According to the United States Organ and Tissue Transplantation Association, organ donation is defined as tissue or organ removal from a deceased or living donor, for transplantation purposes. Tissues and organs are moved in a surgical procedure....
Different people have different reasons for wanting to give stem cells. For some, they have a friend or family member with whom they are a match in type. Others just want to save lives, regardless of if they know the person or not. If you want to...
Doctors treat diseases caused by insufficient or defective blood cells with bone marrow transplants when other treatment options have failed. This procedure is commonly associated with cancer treatments, specifically for patients suffering from...
Bone marrow is soft and fatty and located deep inside the bones. This is where new blood cells are manufactured, including platelets that help clotting, red cells that carry oxygen, and white cells that help fight infection. The donation procedure...
Most people envision the transplant as a surgical procedure, but the process really involves infusing the patient with stem cells from a donor or from himself. The infused cells give rise to platelets, red blood cells, white blood cells--all the...
More than 100,000 people are waiting for organ transplants at any given time, according to Donate Life America, a Virginia-based organization formed "to educate the public about organ, eye and tissue donation." Families struggle during an...
Leukemia is a type of cancer that originates in the bone marrow and spreads to the blood, lymph nodes and central nervous system. Leukemia accounts for one-third of all cancer in children under the age of 15, according to "Pediatric Disorders:...
Individuals who suffer from bone or blood diseases that don't respond to other treatments may be candidates for a bone marrow transplant. In this procedure, healthy bone marrow stem cells from a donor are placed into the bones of the recipient,...
Acute leukemia, a type of cancer that affects bone marrow, causes immature white blood cells called blast cells to proliferate and crowd out other blood cells. An estimated 42,000 new cases of leukemia will be diagnosed in the United States in...
Plasma is the fluid portion of the blood that does not contain any cells. Plasma contains a number of medically useful components including albumin (a protein), other proteins and clotting factors. Plasma collection takes time and commitment on...
A bone marrow transplant is a medical procedure in which a donor provides a special kind of blood, called hematopoietic stem cells, to a recipient. Bone marrow transplants are usually performed under anesthesia while the blood is taken from a...
Stem cells are special undifferentiated cells that have the potential to develop into many different kinds of cells. They are the foundation for every cell, tissue and organ in our body. They help our bodies to replenish themselves by continually...
Cord blood cells are a form of stem cells which can be extracted from the blood in the umbilical cord of a newborn infant. These cells, like other types of blood stem cells, can be used to treat patients with certain kinds of blood and bone...
Approximately 12 million blood transfusions occur annually in the United States, according to America's Blood Centers. Many medical conditions and diseases can lead to a critically low level of red blood cells, the oxygen-carrying component of the...
