So today is Day T+6, marking 6 days since my bone marrow transplant on Thursday, June 20th, 2019. All of my blood lab results continue to plummet, with the likely nadir being sometime in the coming week. Once it bottoms out, the new bone marrow should begin producing blood product and replace my own immune system, with my numbers slowly improving each day, allowing me to overcome my Mantle Cell Lymphoma.
It didn’t dawn on Vicky and I until today that my blood’s DNA is changing. Johns Hopkins will perform DNA tests of my blood on Day T+30 and Day T+60. The DNA should reflect the fading away of my own DNA and the replacement of my donor’s DNA in my bone marrow. The results of the DNA tests should be fascinating, effectively making me a chimera?!
NATURE: How and when should we monitor chimerism after allogeneic stem cell transplantation?
Chimerism analysis has become an important tool for the peri-transplant surveillance of engraftment. It offers the possibility to realize impending graft rejection and can serve as an indicator for the recurrence of the underlying malignant or nonmalignant disease. Most recently, these investigations have become the basis for treatment intervention, for example, to avoid graft rejection, to maintain engraftment and to treat imminent relapse by pre-emptive immunotherapy. This invited review focuses on the clinical implications of characterization of hematopoietic chimerism in stem cell transplantation.