Stem Cell Transplant vs Bone Marrow Transplant: Difference and Comparison

Transplants are widely practised for treating cancer. The aim of the transplant depends on the medical condition of the patient. A transplant includes high chemotherapy doses and other treatments.

Stem cell transplant and bone marrow transplant are two widely used transplants for treating cancer. They are almost the same, but there are some differences between these two transplants.

Key Takeaways

1. Stem cell transplant and bone marrow transplant are two medical procedures used to treat various blood-related diseases.
2. Stem cell transplant involves using stem cells to differentiate into different types of blood cells to replace damaged or diseased cells.
3. Bone marrow transplant involves transplanting bone marrow from a healthy donor to replace damaged or diseased marrow in a patient.

Stem Cell Transplant vs Bone Marrow Transplant

A stem cell transplant uses stem cells, from bone marrow, peripheral blood, or umbilical cord blood, to regenerate a new immune system that will fight existing or residual leukemia cells. A bone marrow transplant specifically uses stem cells from the bone marrow to replace diseased bone marrow.

Stem cell transplant refers to the cell transplant procedure where doctors take stem cells from the bloodstream of the patient or of a donor to replace the damaged stem cells in the body.

It can take time taking to feel better after a stem cell transplant. Generally, stem cell transplant treats cancer, severe immune system, or blood illness. 

Bone marrow transplant refers to the transplant procedure where doctors take stem cells from the bone marrow of the patient or of a donor to replace the unhealthy blood-forming body cells with healthy cells.

Before getting a bone marrow transplant,, the patient receives chemotherapy and sometimes gets radiation to destroy the diseased marrow and cells.

Comparison Table

Parameters of Comparison	Stem Cell Transplant	Bone Marrow Transplant
Definition	Bone marrow transplant is when doctors remove the damaged stem cells of the bone marrow.	A stem cell transplant is harvested from the patient’s or donor’s bloodstream.
Location of harvesting	A stem cell transplant is harvested from the patient’s or donor’s bloodstream.	Anaesthesia
A bone marrow transplant is harvested from the patient’s bone marrow or a donor.	In a bone marrow transplant, either general anesthesia or local anesthesia.	In stem cell transplant, the donor has to suffer a lot of pain.
Pain	In a bone marrow transplant, the donor suffers less pain than the stem cell transplant.	Stem cell transplant is used chiefly compared to bone marrow transplant.
Usage	Stem cell transplant is mostly used compared to bone marrow transplant.	Bone marrow transplant is not used as much as stem cell transplant.

What is Stem Cell Transplant?

A stem cell transplant is when doctors take stem cells from a donor’s bloodstream or umbilical cord to transplant the damaged cells into the patient’s body.

Generally, umbilical cords are used while transplanting children as they don’t have enough cells. 

To trigger stem cell growth, several substances, like G-CSF, need to be introduced before extracting stem cells from the donor body.

The G-CSF, or granulocyte-colony-stimulating, is used and added to the donor body so that the bone marrow of the donor body can produce more stem cells.

The stem cells from the donor body are extracted and then given to the patient body to replace the damaged cells by a procedure called apheresis.

Stem cell transplant is commonly used for treating several medical conditions like myeloma, and other cancers, like leukaemia and lymphoma.

Stem cell transplant is a straightforward process; in stem cell harvesting, anaesthesia is unnecessary. The process is less painful compared to bone marrow transplants. 

There are some disadvantages of stem cell transplant too. The process is time taking.

Firstly the donor has to be treated with the G-CSF to produce more stem cells in the bloodstream, which takes almost six days to produce more stem cells. After that, the stem cells can be extracted from the donor body.

What is Bone Marrow Transplant?

A bone marrow transplant is a transplant where doctors remove stem cells from the bone marrow of a donor’s body to transplant the donor’s damaged cells of the patient’s body.

Bone marrow trpatient’sis also used to treat several cancers like leukaemias and lymphomas and several types of myeloma.

Bone marrow transplant is also used for those cancer patients whose bone marrow was eradicated due to the treatment procedures.

For extracting stem cells from the bone marrow of the donor’s body, general or localdonor’sesia is required as this is an excruciating procedure where a needle is directly inserted into the marrow cavity of the bone of the donor’s body for extracting donor’s.

Almost 1500ml of the stem cells are taken by the needle at once. 

The main advantage of the bone marrow transplant is that there is no need to give G-CSF to the donor’s body as in this proceddonor’seedle directly collects stem cells from the bone marrow.

Doctors don’t have to wait to produce doncellas in the donor body for this. This procedure also reduces the chance of graft versus host disease. 

The major disadvantage of the bone marrow transplant is that the donor has to be given anaesthesia as the procedure is excruciating. In this case, general anaesthesia sometimes causes many complications.

Main Differences Between Stem Cell Transplant and Bone Marrow Transplant

1. A stem cell transplant is when doctors remove the damaged stem cells from the umbilical cord or from the bloodstream. On the other hand, a bone marrow transplant is a transplant where doctors remove the damaged stem cells of the bone marrow.
2. A stem cell transplant is harvested from the patient’s or donor’s bloodstream. A bone marrow transplant, on the contrary, is harvested from the patient’s bone marrow or a donor.
3. In stem cell transplant neither general anaesthesia nor local anaesthesia is required. In a bone marrow transplant, either general anaesthesia or local anaesthesia is required.
4. In stem cell transplant, the donor has to suffer much pain. In a bone marrow transplant, the donor suffers less pain than the stem cell transplant.
5. Stem cell transplant is mostly used compared to bone marrow transplant; bone marrow transplant is not used as much as stem cell transplant.

References

1. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=stem+cell+transplant+&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3Dsy73vHbhfhUJ
2. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=bone+marrow+transplant+&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3D6qOfrBU8BDkJ