Isolation in BMT: a protection or a privation?

Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) is an increasingly important therapy not only in the treatment of haematological oncology, but also of solid tumours. How best to protect the profoundly immunosuppressed transplant patient is controversial. This article presents a brief resume of the literature on isolation in BMT and an account of observations made by the author when visiting a selection of BMT centres in the UK, USA and Canada.