High-Dose Chemotherapy and Bone Marrow Transplant

High-dose chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant, also called high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplant, was a treatment regimen for metastatic and later high-risk breast cancer considered promising during the 1980s and 1990s. Cells were removed from a patient own bone marrow and stored, chemotherapy was given at doses high enough to destroy the remaining marrow, and the stored cells were then reinjected as replacement. Clinical trials ultimately found the regimen no more effective than standard treatment while causing significantly higher side effects, including treatment related death, and it now stands as a historical example of an aggressive therapy that did not survive scrutiny.