Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) is currently the only means to cure thalassaemia. There are three main steps to performing a BMT. The first step involves identifying a bone marrow donor. The donor must have a perfect match (HLA-identical) with the patient for the operation to be successful. If the donor is not a perfect match the transplanted cells will be rejected by the patient and the operation will fail. Usually the donor is a sibling, but there is only a 1 in 4 chance that the sibling will be a perfect match. After identifying the donor, chemotherapy is used to remove all of the defective blood forming cells in the patient’s bone marrow. The final step involves transplanting the donor’s blood-forming cells into the patient’s bone marrow. If the operation is successful the transplanted blood-forming cells in the marrow will be able to produce healthy RBC’s and the thalassaemia will be cured. Unfortunately, this treatment is not available to every thalassaemia patient, and the procedure may be associated with serious risks in some cases.