Stem Cell Transplant and Therapy Treatments

Autologous Stem Cell Transplant

An autologous stem cell transplant uses healthy blood stem cells from your own body to replace bone marrow that’s not working properly. Using cells from your own body during your stem cell transplant offers advantages when compared to using donor stem cells, as it eliminates potential incompatibility issues.

Who Can Receive this Treatment?

An autologous stem cell transplant might be an option if your body is producing enough healthy bone marrow cells.

An autologous stem cell transplant is most often used to treat:

  • Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
  • Multiple Myeloma
  • Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
  • Plasma Cell Disorders

How it Works

An autologous stem cell transplant includes:

  • Taking medications to increase the number of stem cells in your body and facilitate the migration of your bone marrow into your blood to be easily collected.
  • Filtering stem cells from your blood by a machine that filters out the stem cells from your blood, with the remaining blood returned to your body.
  • Undergoing high doses of cancer treatment, called conditioning, to kill your cancer cells.
  • Receiving an infusion of your own stem cells into your bloodstream, where they will travel to your bone marrow and begin creating new blood cells.

Following your treatment, you’ll remain under close medical care to watch for side effects and to monitor your body’s response to the transplant.


Aallogeneic Stem Cell Transplant

An allogeneic stem cell transplant involves the use of healthy blood stem cells from a donor to replace bone marrow that’s not producing enough healthy blood cells. The donor may be a family member, an acquaintance, or someone you don’t know.

Who Can Receive this Treatment?

An allogeneic stem cell transplant is an option for people with a variety of cancerous and non-cancerous diseases:

  • Acute and Chronic Leukemia
  • Aplastic anemia
  • Hodgkin’s and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
  • Multiple Myeloma
  • Myelodysplastic Syndromes

How it Works

An allogeneic stem cell transplant includes:

  • Undergoing high doses of cancer treatment, called conditioning, to kill your cancer cells.
  • Receiving an infusion of stem cells from a donor, where they will travel to your bone marrow and begin creating new blood cells.
  • Remaining under close medical care to closely monitor you for potential complications.

Haloidentical Stem Cell Transplant

Haploidentical stem cell transplant is a type of allogeneic stem cell transplant that allows the use of stem cells from donors who aren’t perfect matches. One of the benefits of this type of transplant is its potential to expand the pool of donors. Haploidentical stem cell transplant uses healthy, blood-forming cells from a half-matches donor to replace the unhealthy cells. The donor is typically a family member.

Who Can Receive this Treatment?

A haploidentical transplant is becoming more common because it can help find a suitable donor quickly. Depending on the type of blood cancer you have, a haploidentical transplant could be an option if no perfectly matched donor is found. Our team will make the best possible decision for your situation.

How it Works

A haploidentical transplant is a newer type of transplant. A haploidentical, or half-matched, donor is usually your mom, your dad, or your child. Parents are always a half-match for their biological children. Siblings have a 50% chance of being a half-match for each other. Our doctor will test your blood to find out your human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type.


Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Transplant

In umbilical cord stem cell transplant, stem cells are collected from umbilical cord blood. Umbilical cord blood is rich in blood-forming stem cells. This procedure uses partially matched unrelated stem cells from the donor’s umbilical cord. Umbilical cord blood collections for donor transplants are stored frozen in public cord blood banks, making the transplant easy to schedule

Who Can Receive this Treatment?

About one-fourth of the people who need an allogenic transplant to treat their cancer have a match and can receive donated stem cells. All the others need to find another donor to receive a transplant. An umbilical cord stem cell transplant can be used for patients who do not have a fully matched available donor.

How it Works

Umbilical cord blood cells are very good at fighting cancer. It can help prevent a person’s cancer from returning after a transplant.


CAR T-Cell Therapy

UI Health is an approved treatment site for CAR (Chimeric Antigen Receptor) T-Cell Therapy. This is an FDA-approved therapy for treating specific types of lymphoma and leukemia in patients who have not responded to previous cancer treatments. Studies have shown CAR-T cell therapy offers excellent results for people with specific blood cancers where previous treatments didn’t work. CAR-T cell therapy works by attacking and killing cancer in the body by adapting millions of your own immune system cells.

Who Can Receive this Treatment?

CAR-T Cell Therapy is not the same as a stem cell transplant or chemotherapy. CAR-T therapy may be a treatment option for:

  • Relapsed, refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia
  • Relapsed, refractory B-cell Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
  • Relapsed, refractory mantle cell lymphoma
  • Relapsed, refractory follicular lymphoma
  • Relapsed, refractory multiple myeloma

How it Works

CAR-T therapy works by:

  • Extracting T-cells or white blood cells from your blood
  • Modifying and duplicating T-cells in the lab
  • Reintroducing CAR-T cells back into your body where they will travel throughout the body looking for cancer cells
  • Millions of CAR-T cells detect and kill cancer cells
  • Most people have a reaction to CAR-T cells that requires them to stay in the hospital for days to weeks for monitoring and management.