Those replacement cells could be the patient’s own blood-forming marrow cells, removed and stored before the marrow is destroyed, or they could be cells from a closely related donor.
Stem cell transplants with the patient’s own cells can put the disease into remission, but it eventually returns.
The Food and Drug Administration recently approved a treatment designed to directly attack the cancer by harnessing the T cells of the patient’s own immune system, or by using drugs designed to block particular molecules on the surface of cancer cells