What is the difference????

Hello everyone

When someone goes through blood transfusion, he takes packed red blood cells(few number of stem cells are present) and in BMT same thing happen,but with much more number of stem cells present. In first case, nothing happens, but in BMT, side effects are terrible, GVHD or HVGD may happen and many other complications may happen that could be fatal.
So what is the difference between the two cases, it may be a silly question and the answer is clear, but really i can't get it. Does this has to do with immune system, even though it is suppressed in BMT??

Anybody got an answer?


Manal

Hi Manal,

You are right. When BMT is done, the immune system is lowed to such a level that the patient is susceptible to even very minor infections (and that is the reason, the post-BMT ward is totally seperate and no one is allowed to go there).  Even if someone has minor cold, the postBMT person can catch it very easily.

GVHD is due to the body recognizing the foreign body(donor's BMT) and trying to reject it and that is why one of the most important factor for a possible BMT is 100% HLA match.

-Narendra

Thanks Narendra for your reply

Hi Manal,
GVHD is due to the body recognizing the foreign body(donor's BMT) and trying to reject it and that is why one of the most important factor for a possible BMT is 100% HLA match.

But why in blood transfusion the body doesn't recognize the donor blood as a foregin body although they are not identical in HLA type?? I mean in transfusion or BMT, what enters the body is blood and in the two cases the body reaction is different. Transfusion is a very simple procedure while BMT is a life threatening one

Second why  GVHD ( when the donor's blood, the graft starts to attack the patients organs, the host ) happens although the T- cells ( fighter cells that a responsible for attacking any forgin body) are taken away from the donor's blood, so what cause the attack??

Thanks

Manal

There is an excellent explanation of the differences between blood transfusion and transplants at

http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000BC173-77DF-1FA1-B7DF83414B7F0000

There are several important differences between blood transfusions and organ transplants. Transfused red cells are expected to last for no more than three months, while transplants will hopefully function for many years. Transfusions are given intravascularly, and transplants are, of course, implanted. Immune responses to foreign antigens that are given intravascularly tend to be less pronounced than responses to antigens introduced through other routes. Transplanted organs contain some immune cells from the donor that can stimulate the recipient, whereas most immune cells that might be in a transfusion are filtered out before administration...

The whole article is well worth reading.

I would also like to point out that the practice is to kill off as much of the recipient's bone marrow as possible, to try to prevent rejection. An example in our own group is Abdulwahab's experience. He had two bone marrow transplants but the first didn't work. With the second, higher doses of chemotherapy were used to try and wipe out a higher percentage of his own bone marrow, so there would be less chance of rejection of the new marrow. So far, the transplant has been a success, although there was still severe host vs graft disease, which did flare back up recently, as Khalifa has related to us.

HI ALL
         yes Manal,,,Andy is wright  my son have bone marrow transplant the first time (2003)   ,but the second time the transplant of BMT is not advisable,,, there is high risk of the dangerous to have failure so we did the PBSC but the GVHD risk is higher in the PBSC than BMT also that day Prof. Adorno he told me we need to colect 7000 celles from your doughter for each kilo Abdulwahab waight  that day his waight is 24 kilo (24X7000= 168000 CELLES)  (that day really i get shock oh my goodness what the hell am i doing for my lettel girl) any way we colect  6800 celles for each kilo (24X6800=163200) all these celles going to make the new bone marrow and all the  celles his body need it like LY,WBC,MO,RBC,HGB,PLT for this reson the old celles try to fight with the new celles even it's same DNA and same bone marrow.(for exampel if your brother from your father and your mother want to take your house and kick you out are you going to say ok or fighting with him  ) ok i have to go now my child start now to fight even they are from the same mother and father 
                                              khalifa
                                        state of kuwait
     ps: my doughter photo

Thanks Andy, it is really worth reading.

Khalifa, you really made me laugh loudly, how are the kids now. Hope the fight is over. Thanks for the elaboration.
Khalifa, your daughter is so pretty, God bless her for what she did for her brother. I am sure that when they grow up they will understand how strong is the bond between them and they will appreciate all what you have been through for their sake.

Manal

HI
        THANK YOU MANAL... ME ALSO START TO LAUGH WHEN I READ IT NOW ... I THINK IT'S OUR JOP AS A PARENTS FOR OUR KIDS ...HOPE IN THE FEUTER THEY RECOGNISE WHAT WE DID FOR THEM BUT AS I SAID BEFORE AND ALWAYS AM REALLY GOING TO GIVE THEM REAL HARD TIME IN THE FIRST NIGHT IN THERE WEDING  :evilplan
                                     
                                               KHALIFA
 
                                        STATE OF KUWAIT