Bone Marrow Transplant

Bone Marrow Harvesting

In traditional bone marrow transplants the stem cells are harvested from a donor’s bone marrow using small cuts, usually over the hipbones, and large needles to aspirate the marrow.  The same procedure is used for patients undergoing stem cell treatment using their own bone marrow and will normally involved a general anaesthetic and at least one night’s stay in hospital.  The extracted bone marrow will then be processed in order to culture the stem cells it contains and provide a larger volume of stem cells to insert into the target organ or tissue.  Peripheral Blood Stem Cell harvesting is an alternative option for some patients to the, often painful, procedure of bone marrow aspiration.


For patients undergoing a stem cell transplant the harvesting procedure is usually covered by health insurance.  Undergoing the process to simply bank stem cells for possible future use is unlikely to be covered without a rationale from a physician demonstrating reasonable need.

Those considering donating bone marrow may be able to undergo a procedure to harvest peripheral blood stem cells instead.  In this case the donor will have a blood sample taken to see if their blood matches a patient needing a transplant.  If a match is found then the donor will be given medication to encourage the migration of the stem cells in the bone marrow into the general circulation.  A few days later the donor will have catheters inserted into veins on both arms and the drawn blood will undergo a process called apheresis where the stem cells are removed and the remaining blood is returned to the donor.  This can be a lengthy process to acquire sufficient stem cells; a full day, or more, is commonly required to obtain enough material for transplantation.  If the stem cells retrieved are insufficient then a surgical bone marrow extraction would be needed instead.