The drawback is that it causes more side effects and as a result can be riskier. Studies show that this may help some patients more than a single transplant. This approach is called tandem transplant.

Some doctors recommend that patients with multiple myeloma have 2 autologous transplants, 6 to 12 months apart. Although an autologous transplant can make the myeloma go away for a time (even years), it doesn’t cure the cancer, and often the myeloma returns. This type of transplant is a standard treatment for patients with multiple myeloma. When this is complete, their stored stem cells are given back into their blood through a vein. Then, the person with myeloma gets treatment such as high-dose chemotherapy, sometimes with radiation, to kill the cancer cells. The cells are stored until they are needed for the transplant. Autologous transplantsįor an autologous stem cell transplant, the patient’s own stem cells are removed from the bone marrow or peripheral blood before the transplant. Stem cell transplants (SCT) can be autologous or allogeneic. (See Drug Therapy for Multiple Myeloma).) Before the transplant, drug treatment is used to reduce the number of myeloma cells in the patient’s body. Stem cell transplant is commonly used to treat multiple myeloma. Now, stem cells are more often collected from blood (a peripheral blood stem cell transplant). When stem cell transplants were first developed, the new stem cells came from bone marrow, and so this was known as a bone marrow transplant. Then the patient receives new, healthy blood-forming stem cells. In a stem cell transplant, the patient gets high-dose chemotherapy to kill the cells in the bone marrow.

Myeloma stem cell transplant