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Originally Posted by bloodbrainbarr
I have heard of something new where they don't have to actually "drill" into your bone to extract healthy marrow. That they can give you a shot or something less invasive.
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This may be about the two methods used to collect stem cells from bone marrow donors. In other words, it's about the donor's experience, not what happens to the transplant patient.
In a traditional bone marrow donation, the donor receives an anesthetic and bone marrow is extracted from their hip in a surgical procedure. It's very much like the bone marrow biopsy procedure that patients undergo for diagnostic reasons. My wife's bone marrow donor had this procedure and said she was sore for a couple of days but nothing she couldn't tolerate.
The newer technique is stem cell donation, in which the donor is given shots of Neupogen to move some of their stem cells from their bone marrow into their circulating blood. The stem cell donation is then just like a regular blood donation, no surgery involved.
In either case, the patient having the transplant gets the marrow/stem cells through an IV, just like a blood transfusion.