Feasibility and limitations of bone marrow transplantation in children

Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) has been used increasingly for the treatment of patients with a variety of hematological, immunological and oncological diseases. Originally a highly experimental and often unsuccessful procedure, it has become the treatment modality of choice for selected leukemias, severe aplastic anemia, genetic diseases and solid tumors. Despite the overall success of bone marrow transplantation, a number of serious and potentially fatal complications may occur. Conditioning regimens include chemotherapeutic and radiotherapeutic techniques immunosuppressive enough to allow engraftment of genetically foreign marrow. Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is one of the major clinical problems complicating allogeneic BMT. Two forms have been described, acute and chronic GvHD. BMT recipients frequently develop infections complications.