Bone marrow transplants have varying degrees of success, particularly when the donor is someone other than the patient or an identical twin (allogeneic transplantation). This type of transplantation is more likely to be effective in younger people.  After the age of 30, vulnerability to graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) rises rapidly, especially in those between the ages of 40 and 55.

When effective, bone marrow transplants can help treat a number of cancers, including:

• Acute leukemia. Younger patients tend to fare better than older patients, although there are success stories in all age groups. Patients with acute leukemia who have relapsed after trying other treatments usually find a bone marrow transplant to be their best option for successful treatment.
  
  
• Chronic granulocytic leukemia. Bone marrow transplants are often used for patients who have this disease and have a human leukocyte-associated (HLA)-matched brother or sister.
  
  
• Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Patients with these types of tumors are among the best candidates for a combination of high-dose chemotherapy or radiation combined with a bone marrow transplant. They include two subsets:
  
  
• • Aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas. While these diseases may be successfully treated with other therapies, bone marrow transplants are often the most effective for any later relapse of these diseases.
    
    
  • Low-grade non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas. Allogeneic transplants have increasingly been used to treat this disease, with a large proportion of patients reportedly responding well to the treatment.
    
    
• Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Patients usually do well using standard therapies to treat this disease. However, patients who do relapse often have poor success with standard therapy and appear to benefit from bone marrow transplants.
  
  
• Other blood cancers. Patients with hairy cell leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) have shown excellent responses to bone marrow transplants. Transplants also have been used to benefit some patients with multiple myeloma.
  
  
• Solid tumors. Transplants have been used successfully  to treat a wide variety of carcinomas and sarcomas. However, some solid tumors – including lung cancers, breast cancers, ovarian cancer and gastrointestinal cancers – are not sensitive enough to high-dose chemotherapy and radiation to make transplants a standard of treatment.
  
  Solid tumors in children, particularly neuroblastomas, also can sometimes be effectively treated using bone marrow transplants.