HLA Typing for Bone Marrow Transplantation

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Abstract
BONE MARROW transplantation, first introduced into clinical practice in the 1960s, has now become an accepted form of therapy for a variety of hematologic malignancies as well as a number of other cancers, inherited blood disorders, immunodeficiency syndromes, and certain metabolic diseases.1,2In general, the purpose of bone marrow transplantation is to (1) replace malignant or genetically defective hematopoietic stem cells with healthy, fully functional stem cells; (2) allow the cancer patient to survive the high-dose radiation and/or chemotherapy required to destroy the malignant cells; and (3) in the case of certain cancers, provide a source of immunocompetent cells that can destroy any residual malignant cells (graft vs leukemia effect).3-5The clinical procedure of bone marrow transplantation involves the destruction of the patient's own marrow by irradiation and/or chemotherapy followed by the infusion of healthy bone marrow obtained from another individual (an allogeneic transplant). In cases of solid