2.1.1. Chronicles of a Genetic Counselor
Facts about BMT's
- Allogenic Transplants: Cells from a matched donor
- Baby Donors, Babies born in hopes of being matches, are highly controversial
- Two Different ways:
- BMT: Collect Bone Marrow, put asleep, extracted from hip, pain for a few days
- Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation: Doctors take your blood, a machine takes out stem cells, blood put back in you, Stem Cells given through transfusion
Anticipated Questions
Q: Will the extracting or the replacing of bone marrow harm my child?
A: It will leave the child sore and tired for a few days, but that is the most your child will be harmed.
- Siblings: 25%, Parents: 12.5%
Q: If we have this child, how great is the chance he or she will be a match?
Thompson Family Tree
A: There is a 25% chance this child will be a match for Patrice. It is far greater than the 12.5% you, the parents, had for a match.
Bone Marrow Transplant
Q: If we do this will Patrice be cured?
A: Unfortunately, doing this will not guarantee her health coming back, but it will greatly increase her chances of survival.
A Bone Marrow
Transplant is when
bone marrow is taken
from a donor who is a
match for the person in need of the marrow.
Thompson Family Notes
For this specific case, I think it best for the Thompson family to put Patrice's name on the National Bone Marrow Registry, but also to try and have a baby. While this is a very controversial subject and frowned upon by many doctors and psychologists, I think it may be best for them to try for a match in a new baby. The waiting time on the NBMR can be a few months to a few years, which at that point may be too late, due to no fault of their own. There is technology in the works where you will be able to genetically modify a baby to be a specific match, but scientists have no clue when that will be done. Until then we have to leave that matches up to nature.
- The purpose is to replenish the body with healthy cells, usually done after treatment.
My Recommendations
- Markus, Wanda, 3 year-old Patrice
- Patrice is battling Leukemia
- She is in Chemo, but needs a Bone Marrow Transplant
- Grandparents are not a match
- The parents are not a match, and they have no other family to test
- They want to have another child in hopes of a Bone Marrow match
- http://www.webmd.com/cancer/tc/leukemia-topic-overview
- http://www.webmd.com/cancer/bone-marrow-transplants-stem-cell-transplants-cancer-treatment
Leukemia Cont.
- Exact causes are unknown, but it is not a hereditary disease, it is a multifactorial disease
- 4 Types
- Acute: Gets worse fast, sick right away
- Chronic: Gets wors slower, symptoms may not show for years
- Lymphocytic: Affects WBC's called lymphocyles
- Myelogenous: Affects other cells in bone marrow (RBC's, Platelets etc...)
Leukemia
our white blood cells,
the cells that fight
infections, do not work normally, reproduce uncontrollably and continuously grow to abnormal sizes
- This cancer usually starts in the bone marrow where cells are made
- The sick Cancer cells crowd out the healthy normal blood cells