Nancy,
The reason for having a bone marrow biopsy (BMB) to confirm your mother's diagnosis would not be for the purpose of planning a transplant, but to establish how best to treat her and how to anticipate what course her disease might take. If she doesn't have any of the abnormalities that define MDS, but some other sort of anemia, her prognosis could be for a much longer life than if she was actually found to have MDS or even MDS progressing toward AML. Because your concerns are about how to plan for her future care, I think you need the information that can be obtained only from a BMB.
Although BMBs are an invasive procedure that is not pleasant for the patient, they can be done with conscious sedation so the patient feels no pain and recovers easily. There are
several posts on this topic in the
Questions & Answers forum.
Regards,
Ruth