ASSENT FORM - PATIENT AGE 7-18 YEARS FOR BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT 
ASSENT 
You have neuroblastoma which is not being cured by our usual treatments. We would like 
to treat the disease by performing a bone marrow transplant using your own bone marrow. 
Before we do the bone marrow transplant we will examine you to be sure you can have the 
transplant. We will also test you for certain viruses including the virus for AIDS. 
First, we will take a small part of your bone marrow out while you are asleep in the 
operating room. Since you will be sleeping, you will not feel us take the marrow. When you 
wake up, you may have some pain but you will receive medicine to make this feel better. 
Your bone marrow will be frozen for later use. 
At a later time, you will come into the hospital and receive high-dose drugs that will stop 
your blood forming cells from growing. We hope these drugs will also get rid of your 
leukemia and stop it from coming back. We will then thaw your marrow and give it to you 
so your blood forming cells will grow again. 
MARROW MARKING 
If you agree, we will take a part (one-third) of the bone marrow that we remove from you 
and mix it with a special virus to mark the cells. If there were neuroblastoma cells in your 
bone marrow when we stored it, we may be able to mark the cells and tell if your disease 
is coming back from the bone marrow we gave you. This virus may mark 1 in 20 of your 
normal cells so we can watch them grow back after your bone marrow transplant. We hope 
that we will learn more about your disease in this way and one day be better able to help 
you or others. 
HIGH-DOSE CHEMOTHERAPY 
You will receive a drug called carboplatin by vein every other day for three days. Then you 
will get a second drug called VP-16 every other day for three days. 
BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT 
After the high-dose drug therapy you will have two days of rest and then your frozen bone 
marrow will be thawed and given back to you by your central catheter. An extra amount of 
blood will be taken once or twice a week for six weeks, and then monthly for six months, and 
then every sue months for two years, and finally once a year for two years afterwards to test 
how the marrow cells are growing. You will also receive a total of eight bone marrow 
aspirates to judge how well your marrow is growing and whether the marked cells are 
present. 
SIDE EFFECTS 
The transplant can produce bad side effects. These include permanent damage to the bone 
marrow, lung disease, liver disease, other cancers, severe vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding from 
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