How does a bone marrow transplant work? What makes it different from other AML treatments?

How does a bone marrow transplant work? What makes it different from other AML treatments?

The reason that bone marrow transplants or stem cell transplants work for AML is not because the chemotherapy we give the patient as part of their preparation for the transplant. It's really the transplanted bone marrow and immune system looking for and destroying leukemia cells. That makes bone marrow transplants successful for AML.

If it were just about the chemotherapy, we might be able to get away without a transplant. But it's really essential for this immunotherapy, this immune attack that we call the graft versus leukemia effect, to go and look for any hiding and stubborn leukemia cells and kill them. That allows us to give these long standing cures when bone marrow transplant works.