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health advisory Hospital Doctor Yu 2007-11-8 19:08:05

I have a family member who has had an organ transplant, so I know about anti-rejection for organs, but I am curious to know why it is that anti-rejection drugs are not required for ligaments, bones and bone marrow. Thank you for your time!

Answers:

Bone marrow is the tissue that produces the very immune system cells that attack transplanted organs. Since bone marrow is a transplant, it will not attack itself, since it recognizes its own cells. Therefore, bone marrow is not rejected. Sometimes, however, the immune system cells that transplanted bone marrow produces may not recognize host tissues (since they "look" foreign to them) and may start attacking them. In a sense, the transplant "rejects" the host. This phenomenon is called graft-versus-host disease.

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For bone and liganment transplants there are not enough live cells in them for the body to reject. Basiscally they are processed so all of the original cells are dead and the transplants are just a scaffolding so that the new host can replace the old tissue with new tissue over the course of months to years

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