What should you expect from allogeneic stem cell transplant for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia?

Before the transplant, tests assess your health and a donor is selected for tissue compatibility. Conditioning treatment uses chemotherapy, sometimes with radiotherapy, to prepare the bone marrow and suppress immune activity. Donor stem cells are then given through a central line, much like an infusion. The cells travel to the marrow and begin making new blood cells, but recovery takes time and requires regular blood tests and clinical reviews.

Medicines help prevent or manage graft-versus-host disease, in which donor immune cells react against the recipient’s tissues. Infection prevention, nutrition, transfusion support, and emotional care are parts of recovery.

Take medicines on schedule, follow food and hygiene instructions, and keep the transplant team’s contact details available. Avoid crowded or unwell contacts and check before eating foods or taking products not discussed with the team. Keep all blood tests and follow-up visits. The [Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant](/treatments/cellular-and-transplant-therapy/allogeneic-stem-cell-transplant/) page provides more treatment detail.

Call the transplant team immediately for fever, chills, new cough, breathing difficulty, diarrhoea, vomiting, rash, yellowing skin, unusual bleeding, confusion, or pain or redness around the central line. Symptoms can signal infection, graft-versus-host disease, or another complication and need prompt assessment.

Ask what conditioning will involve, how donor matching is assessed, how long close monitoring may continue, which restrictions apply at home, and which symptoms require an immediate call rather than routine review.