Hmmmm....makes sense, but wouldn't it increase the risk to the patient who needs the transplant? They're not generally in good health as it is...
Ok...so the new immune system doesn't reject the new organ....so why doesn't it reject the rest of the body instead?! Afterall, the bone marrow is a match to the transplanted organ, but not to the body it went into!
Bone marrow transplants are extremely risky, and the article doesn't mention that. I knew a girl who had one to cure her leukemia. She lived through the procedure and was cured, but had a stroke which gave her a permanent case of aphasia. This produced an extreme speech disability which really changed her life, not for the better.
Mind you, almost anything is better than dying. But it's not a case of just popping over to the hospital for the afternoon and having a bone marrow transplant.
ping
Thanks for this article, very interesting. I lost two close friends, sisters, to complications from kidney transplants. One got several cadaver transplants and eventually died, and the sister got her dad's kidney and lived into her 30's; she died of the cancer she likely got from all anti-rejection drugs. Anything that gives hope for a better long-term quality of life is fantastic.