A transplant can either involve receiving your own bone marrow that has been taken from you prior to treatment, or bone marrow from a compatible person (called a donor).

Conditioning treatment, which may involve high-dose chemo and total body radiation, is administered before the transplant to kill the cancer cells.The bone marrow taken from before chemo.

Then, the healthy bone marrow is given through an intravenous line. In some cases a patient will receive their own bone marrow back, taken prior to treatment (this is called an autologous transplant) and in others a patient will receive bone marrow from a donor (this is called an allogeneic transplant).

A BMT can be a lengthy and isolating treatment method that may involve being in hospital for quite a long time.