After a challenging three-year bout with a rare form of lymphoma, Chris Christiansen’s cancer was in remission and he was ready to celebrate. He booked a month-long trip through Europe in the spring of 2000, relieved that his doctors’ second attempt to eliminate his disease seemed to have worked. But he was barely over his jet lag when he knew something was wrong.

"I remember getting to Zurich and feeling a bump behind my ear about the size of a pencil eraser," said the now 73-year-old Seattle resident. "By the time I got home a couple of weeks later, it was about as big as my thumb."

The best hope for a cure for Chris’ relapsed disease — an unusually stubborn cancer known as mantle-cell lymphoma — was a stem-cell transplant from an unrelated adult donor. The procedure would subject Chris to heavy radiation and chemotherapy followed by an infusion of specialized blood cells. But because he was beyond the age at which transplants are typically performed, his doctors at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center were reluctant to attempt the procedure for fear that he wouldn’t survive the rigors of treatment.

To read on, see this issue's cover story.