A sterile laminar flow room, commonly known as a “sterile chamber,” is a relatively separate, relatively closed room where patients live during transplantation. The air is filtered through layers to remove suspended particles that carry germs and is pressurized and delivered into the patient’s room. Therefore, the pressure inside the sterile chamber is higher than outside the chamber, and the air will only flow from inside the patient’s room to outside the room, but not in the opposite direction, thus ensuring clean air inside the sterile chamber.
The sterile laminar flow room is relatively small, but it has all the amenities that a normal room should have, even though it is small. The patient has to go through about four stages, starting from pre-treatment before the hematopoietic stem cell transplantation into the warehouse until the patient leaves the warehouse.
Phase 1: The preconditioning period, which typically lasts about a week
Patients receive high doses of chemotherapy and/or radiation before transplantation to remove residual tumor cells from the patient’s body, much like using a “weed killer” to remove other crops and weeds from the soil before planting a crop in a field to make room for the bone marrow to be “seeded” for the subsequent transplant. “
These are the first two years of the new generation of the new generation.
Patients at this stage experience common reactions to chemotherapy, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, dizziness, weakness, etc. There are usually strong antiemetic medications and more infusions, and most people do not react very badly and can still eat and drink normally.
Phase 2: Hematopoietic stem cell transplant day, usually 1 to 2 days
The blood stem cells collected from the donor look like a bag of blood, about 200-300 ml, and contain a lot of the seeds of life, the blood stem cells.
On the day of collection, the cells are transfused into the patient’s body through a blood vessel in the arm, like a blood transfusion. Before the stem cells are infused, the patient is given some medication to prevent possible transfusion reactions. Most people have a smooth infusion, just like a blood transfusion, while a few people have transfusion reactions, such as red skin rashes, fever, and red urine. Depending on the number of stem cells collected, some people will need 2 transfusions.
Every transplant patient should remember this day because it is the day when life starts over.
Phase 3: Myelosuppression, usually 2 weeks
This phase can also be understood as the “bruising” phase. If you compare the patient’s bone marrow to soil, the crops and weeds have been removed by herbicides, but the seeds that have just been planted still need time to take root and grow. At this stage, no crops can be seen in the farmland, and the white blood cells in the patient’s blood will drop to “0”, platelets will even drop to one percent of normal, and red blood cells will drop to about half of normal.
Patients are weaker during this period and need to import other people’s red blood cells and platelets to get through this difficult time. Intensive mouth rinsing, cleaning of the vulva, anal opening, and perianal skin is needed, and antibiotics are usually applied. Patients with more severe mouth ulcers or diarrhea will have intravenous infusion of nutritional fluids.
Phase 4: Blood cell recovery
Usually about 2 weeks or 14 days after transplantation, the donor’s hematopoietic stem cells are successfully implanted and the patient’s blood cells rise from a nadir to essentially normal. At this point, the patient’s symptoms such as mouth ulcers and infected fever improve significantly, and his or her strength gradually returns, allowing him or her to be considered for discharge to a general ward.
Therefore, treatment throughout the pod lasts approximately 3 to 4 weeks.