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Risks and Side Effects of Blood and Marrow Transplants

Complications can be mild or serious. Sometimes the complications can be treated. Other times, the complications are fatal.

One serious complication of allogeneic transplantation is graft versus host disease. That is a condition in which donor cells attack your body tissues. Graft versus host disease may be acute or chronic. Acute graft versus host disease typically occurs in the first three months following transpant but chronic graft versus host disease can occur for up to two years after transplant. The symptoms of chronic graft versus host disease may never go away.

A rare complications of both autologous and allogenec transplant is graft failure, which occurs when transplanted cells don't produce new blood cells. Other complications of both autologous and allogeneic transplant include infertility, early menopause, organ damage and second cancers.

Side effects from the preparative regimen include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, painful mouth sores, hair loss and low blood counts.Ìý Side effects associated with low blood counts include:

• Anemia
• Bleeding
• Infections