Sometimes, people need to be given larger doses of chemotherapy to improve the chances of curing the Hodgkin lymphoma. You might be offered high-dose treatment if the ordinary chemo hasn't got rid of your Hodgkin lymphoma, or if it has come back despite treatment. Your doctors will let you know if high-dose treatment is necessary, and possible for you. To be able to have this high-dose treatment, you need to have something called a stem cell transplant.
Stem cells are the basic blood cells from which other cells develop. They can be collected directly from the blood or from the bone marrow. Bone marrow is in the inner part of our bones and is where blood cells are made (a bit like the 'factory' of the blood).
what happens?
Stem cells are collected from your body and stored safely in a freezer. Then you have high doses of chemotherapy, higher than you would normally be able to have. A major side effect of this is that your bone marrow is 'wiped out'. But it's OK because your stem cells are then returned to you to 'rescue' you from the effects of the high-dose treatment.
To make sure there are plenty of stem cells to collect, you will be given injections of 'growth factor'. This is a substance that makes stem cells multiply and spill over from your bone marrow into your blood.
When the number of different cells in your blood is at the right level, the stem cells are collected. It takes about 3-4 hours. You lie down and a drip is attached to your central line. Blood is taken through the drip into a machine called a 'cell separator', which spins it to separate the stem cells. These are collected and the rest of your blood is returned to you.
After you have the high-dose chemotherapy, your stem cells are given back to you through a drip. In some situations, people are given stem cells that come from someone else (a donor) rather than their own cells.
Stem cell transplants are complicated treatments and so they are carried out in specialist cancer treatment hospitals.
