Leukemia

[Guest]

I am a 49 year old female in excellent health (other than having CLL.) I have a question about using my own bone marrow for future treatment. If it is likely that a bone marrow transplant will be needed as part of my future treatment, why not take my own marrow (with a white cell count of 20,000) and freeze it for future use? That way there would be fewer mutant white cells to destroy (than at a later time) and I would avoid potential problems of rejection from another doner.
Is this done? Why or why not?

[Guest]

There is no good data to suggest that using your bone marrow would be
beneficial. The disease is a problem with the progenitor cell of the
lymphocyte class. The problem cell is located in your bone marrow. If they
were to reintroduce this cell at the time of transplant the likelihood of
recurrence would be higher then using non-contaminated marrow. Thank you for
using oncologychannel and good luck.

[quote] I am a 49 year old female in excellent health (other than having CLL. ) I have a question about using my own bone marrow for future treatment... [/quote]