A bone marrow transplant is a medical procedure performed to replace bone marrow that has been damaged or destroyed by disease, infection, or chemotherapy. This procedure involves transplanting blood stem cells, which travel to the bone marrow where they produce new blood cells and promote growth of new marrow.

Autologous transplant : Stem cells for an autologous transplant come from your own body. Sometimes, cancer is treated with a high-dose, intensive chemotherapy or radiation therapy treatment. This type of treatment can damage your stem cells and your immune system. That's why doctors remove, or rescue, your stem cells from your blood or bone marrow before the cancer treatment begins.

Allogenic transplant : Stem cells for an allogenic transplant come from another person, called a donor. The donor's stem cells are given to the patient after the patient has chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. This is also called an ALLO transplant.

Umbilical cord blood transplant: In this type of transplant, stem cells from umbilical cord blood are used. The umbilical cord connects a fetus to its mother before birth. After birth, the baby does not need it. Cancer centers around the world use cord blood. Learn more about cord blood transplants.

Parent-child transplant and haplotype mismatched transplant : Cells from a parent, child, brother, or sister are not always a perfect match for a patient's HLA type, but they are a 50% match. Doctors are using these types of transplants more often, to expand the use of transplantation as an effective cancer treatment.