ABSTRACT
The attempts at bone marrow transplantation (BMT) in man followed rapidly upon the realization and subsequent proof by Lorenz et al. that the radiation-protective effect conferred by bone marrow in mice was due to engraftment and proliferation of viable bone marrow cells. At a very early stage, two distinct approaches emerged: autologous BMT, used in patients with malignant disease as a means of intensifying anticancer treatment, and allogeneic BMT, first employed in the treatment of bone marrow failure, and in patients with uncontrolled leukemia. While experimental models, usually of leukemia eradication in rodents receiving syngeneic transplants of bone marrow, point to a direct relationship between dose administered and cure, it seems likely that treatments used in clinical BMT achieve a level of tumor cell eradication sufficient to explain the observed cures. Clearly, the correction of these nonmalignant disorders is at present in the province only of allogeneic BMT, since correction relies upon a source of normal hemopoietic stem cells.
