Bone marrow transplantation for children with cancer.

Bone marrow transplantation is a new, effective method for producing long-term disease-free survival in some cancer patients whose disease cannot be controlled by conventional treatments. The procedure is arduous and costly. The major problems which limit the usefulness of bone marrow transplantation are the effectiveness with which malignant disease can be eradicated and the control of graft-vs-host disease. As approaches to these problems are developed, it is likely that bone marrow transplantation will be more widely employed in the treatment of children with cancer. Careful followup of patients will be necessary in order to define the long-term effects of bone marrow transplantation, particularly as they are expressed in disorders of growth, development, learning, and psychosocial adaptation.