Bone Marrow Diseases- Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

Bone Marrow Diseases- Causes, Symptoms and Treatment Bone marrow disease is a condition that occurs when there are interference and abnormality in the production of blood cells. Some of the common symptoms of bone marrow diseases include swelling, anemia and pain. Bone marrow failure occurs when the body is unable to keep up with the production of healthy blood cells.

What is bone marrow?

Bone marrow is a soft spongy tissue that lies within the bones. It is the manufacturing site for red blood cells. It is the site where hematopoietic cells are produced. Hematopoietic cells include red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and myelocytes. Bone marrow is located in the pelvis bone, sternum or chest bone, and thigh bone.

Bone marrow contains stem cells that are primitive in nature. Stem cells are capable of turning into any cell in the body. As per the body’s requirement, a stem cell can differentiate to form the platelets, red blood cells or the white blood cells. Bone marrow also contains supporting fibrous tissues apart from stem cells.

Types of bone marrow disease Bone marrow disease is an abnormal condition where the body is not able to produce blood cells that are essential for the body. The three types of bone marrow diseases are: 1. Aplastic Anemia Aplastic Anemia is a bone marrow disease where the bone marrow stops producing blood cells. Due to this the body’s need for blood cells is not restored.

2. Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria This is a rare form bone marrow disease where the red blood cells break down. Usually, healthy red blood cells have a protein shield. This protein shield protects them from an attack by the own immune system. In paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, the protein shield is missing, and the red cells break down.

3. Myelodysplastic Syndrome This type of bone marrow disease is a failure of the bone marrow to produce healthy platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. The bone

marrow produces immature and underdeveloped cells that are abnormal in size and shape. This condition is commonly referred as bone marrow cancer or blood cancer.

Symptoms of bone marrow diseases 1. Pain: This is one the most common symptom of bone marrow diseases. The typical symptoms are headaches, bone pain and joint pain.

2. Swelling: Sometimes, bone marrow diseases lead to the swelling of internal organs. The liver, spleen and kidneys become enlarged when the bone marrow disease occurs. The bone marrow disease damages the red blood cells leading to infection and swollen glands 3. Anemia: The first symptom of bone marrow disease is anemia. When the red blood cell count drops down, a person can get anemia. This happens as the oxygen levels come down in the body. Fatigue and weakness accompanies anemia in people suffering from bone marrow disease.

4. Chromosomal changes: When people having bone marrow diseases are tested, gene and chromosomal changes pop up. Leukemia results in some parts of the chromosomes moving to other chromosomes.

Bone marrow tests and procedure Bone marrow tests are usually per performed to diagnose lymphomas, to check recovery status after treatment, to check if the bone marrow is functioning properly and diagnosing if lymphomas have spread to other parts of the body.

The bone marrow test is typically a biopsy procedure that takes around 60 minutes. The patient will be asked to lie down on the side or the back depending on the location of bone marrow. A small sample of the solid bone tissue is taken out and sent to the lab for testing. This is commonly called the bone marrow biopsy test.

Bone marrow aspirate is also performed as a diagnostic procedure where the liquid present in the bone marrow space is aspirated and sent to a lab for testing.

Bone marrow treatment- Options and methods Bone marrow diseases affect the ability of bone marrow to produce healthy blood cells. In such cases, a bone marrow transplant is considered to be the best option. A bone marrow transplant

procedure involves the replacement of destroyed and damaged bone marrow with healthy and functioning bone marrow cells. There are three types of bone marrow transplants which are: 1} Umbilical cord blood transplant: Stem cells are removed from newborn baby’s umbilical cord and frozen until needed for transplant.

These stem cells are very immature and are perfect for operation.

2} Autologous bone marrow transplant: In this bone marrow transplant procedure, stem cells are removed before radiation and chemotherapy. Stem cells are frozen and stored until chemotherapy and radiation therapy are over. Later they are put back into the body to make healthy blood cells.

3} Allogeneic bone marrow transplant: This bone marrow transplant procedure involves removing stem cells from a donor who matches the patient’s genes.

Bone marrow transplants if success can completely cure the bone marrow disease. The recovery is based on the age, type of bone marrow disease and the complications involved. The patient can resume his normal day to day activities after recovery.