Stem Cell/Bone Marrow Transplantation as Biotherapy

It is clear that bone marrow transplantation has become a major technique in the treatment of metastatic cancer. The use of autologous bone marrow transplantation has allowed for much higher doses of chemotherapy to be given in an attempt to eliminate all of the cancer cells from the patient with the sacrifice of normal bone marrow function in the process. Autologous, cryopreserved bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) can be reinfused to reconstitute stem cells and bone marrow function. This process is still dose limited by damage to the gastrointestinal tract, liver, lung, heart and other critical organs [20, 36]. Considerable progress has been made using this technique to allow dose escalation with chemotherapeutic agents. Escalation of doses to the level causing damage to secondary target organs is the current limitation of this technique.