Bone Marrow Transplantation in Pediatric Age Group

Abstract

All of the mature blood cells in the body are generated from a relatively Small number of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and progenitors (Lemiscltka ,2001).

Murine models, particularly short-and long-term transplant studies, have provided a number of insights into the biology of HSCs and progenitors.The results of these studies have demonstrated that HSCs are able to generate every lineage found in the hematopoietic system including red blood cells, platelets, and a variety of lymphoid and myeloid cells (Lemiscltka ,2001).

Some of the most important lymphoid cells include natural killer (NK) cells,T cells, and B cells, while important myeloid cells include granulocytes, monocytes, macrophages, microglial cells, and dendritic cells (Akaslti ,et a/,1999) .

Each of these cell types can be generated from a single HSC, and each HSC has an enmmous capacity to generate large numbers of these cells over many years and perhaps even decades. While HSCs are primarily found in the bone marrow, they are present in a variety of other tissues including peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood, and are found at low numbers in the liver, spleen, an9 perhaps many organs (Holyoake ,et a/,1999) .

These HSCs may have somewhat different properties, but they all have the ability to generate all the different blood lineages in large numbers for a