The table on the next page summarizes the results of allogeneic and autologous bone marrow transplantation as a treatment for a variety of cancers. These results are only summaries and certainly vary with specific clinical situations.
It is also important to recognize that bone marrow transplantation as a treatment for cancer is a fast-changing field. New high-dose therapies or improved transplant techniques might change the results with a particular disease in a very short time.
Leukemias The first common cancer to be treated with bone marrow transplantation was acute leukemia. Even patients with "end stage leukemia" could sometimes be cured when they had allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, although there were better results when it was used early in the treatment of the disease.
Acute Leukemia The results for allogeneic transplantation in acute leukemia seem to depend very much on age. Patients who have a transplant as part of their initial therapy have a cure rate of more than 50 percent if they're under 20. But as age increases, the cure rate decreases. Results in patients over 40 are much poorer, although successful transplants can still be performed. But the fact that regular-dose chemotherapy also has better results in younger patients—and can sometimes cure them—makes the use of marrow transplantation in the initial control of the disease (first remission) very controversial.
