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Blood and Marrow Transplant Options

Transplant options for every child


One of the first questions families ask us is will my child have a donor?

When we meet a child in need of a transplant, we search all available donor options. Doing so means we can quickly find the best solution each child. As a transplant center for the National Marrow Donor Program, Children’s Mercy has access to donor registries throughout the world.

There are two types of transplant:

  • Allogeneic transplant is when cells are obtained from someone else. 

  • Autologous transplant is when the patient’s own cells are used.

Types of donors include:

  • Matched siblings

  • Partially matched related donors (including parents), also called a haploidentical transplant

  • Unrelated donors from a volunteer registry

  • Umbilical cord blood units

We can obtain the healthy cells from the donor in different ways. These include:

  • Bone marrow – typically taken from the back of the hip bones from the donor

  • Peripheral blood - taken from the blood of the donor by using a machine to filter out the stem cells

  • Cord blood transplants – using stem cells from donated umbilical cords 

Transplants completed in 2018

 

Number of blood and marrow transplants at Children's Mercy