Bone marrow transplantation dates back to the ‘50s, but greatest progress in this therapeutic modality applied successfully in the treatment of several conditions took place mostly during the past 25 years. Among all organ transplantations, bone marrow transplants are second only to kidney transplants. In Poland this therapeutic technique also undergoes a rapid development. During the past 10 years, absolute numbers of various forms of transplantation increased 100-fold, starting from 6 procedures in 1989 to over 700 at present. Essentially, the term bone marrow transplantation (BMT), present in names of international associations and registers, is in fact a colloquialism (e.g. European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation). A much more appropriate term would be hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). This is because progenitor cells for transplantation may be obtained not only from bone marrow, but also from peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood. The term hematopoietic cell transplantation has a much broader meaning and includes: classic transplantation of bone marrow obtained at surgery, transplantation of peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCT) and umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells. All hematopoietic stem cells express on their surface the CD34+ antigen and glycosylated transmembrane protein, a member of the family of adhesion molecules. In healthy persons, expression of this antigen in bone marrow cells is at the level of 1-3%, while in peripheral blood – 0.01-0.1%, and in umbilical cord blood – 0.1-0.4%. The first source (transplantation material) of hematopoietic progenitor cells was bone marrow, while transplantation of stem cells obtained from peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood started much later (during the ‘80s of the past century).

hematopoietic stem cells transplantation, bone marrow, peripheral blood, umbilical cord blood, mobilization of hematopoietic stem cells, growth factors