Narayana Health completes 2K bone marrow transplants
BENGALURU: Narayana Health became one of the leading healthcare providers in India to complete 2,000 bone marrow transplants (BMT), a critical procedure to treat certain forms of cancer. BMT is an effective treatment for conditions like acute and chronic myeloid, Leukemia, Lymphoma (lymphatic cancer), Myeloma (cancer of plasma cells) etc.
Explaining the potential of BMT transplants, Dr Sharat Damodar, clinical director and head of Haematology, BMT, Narayana Health City, Bengaluru, said BMT had the potential to cure over 20 types of diseases and success rate was 70-80 per cent, awareness about this treatment is poor and a holistic approach is required to educate both patients and physicians.
Dr Sunil Bhat, vice-chairman, oncology services, director and clinical lead, paediatric haematology, oncology, blood and BMT transplantation said, “In 1.4 billion population, only 5 lakh registered donors are available, with a rising requirement for BMT transplants.” Narayana Health also introduced CAR-T (Chimeric Antigen Receptor Therapy) treatment to fight cancer at Narayana Health City, Bengaluru. They plan to extend treatment to other centres and have become India’s first hospital-based CAR -T cell generating laboratory to initiate phase II trials.