A bone marrow transplant can be a lifesaving treatment, but it can come with life-threatening risks.
A bone marrow transplant can be a lifesaving treatment, but it can come with life-threatening risks.
The encouraging news for patients: Those risks have been plummeting for years.
In 2010, a team at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center reported a striking improvement in survival for patients who had a bone marrow transplant from the 1990s through the early 2000s. The team’s latest analysis shows that trend has continued. The overall risk of death after transplant dropped 34% between 2003-2007 and 2013-2017, according to research published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Those gains stem from a sharp decline in transplant-related complications, said corresponding author Dr. George McDonald, an emeritus member at Fred Hutch. The risk of dying from those complications — mostly due to infections and diseases involving the liver, kidneys and lungs — has fallen from 30% to 11% over the past 25 years.
Read more at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Image: “Each of us has been working hard, trying to make our little corner of the problem less severe,” said Dr. George McDonald, who saw his first transplant patient in 1972. (Photo by Robert Hood / Fred Hutch News Service)
