CUTTACK: The SCB Medical College and Hospital here marked yet another milestone by performing Odisha’s first halo allogenic bone marrow transplant (BMT) procedure at its clinical haematology department on Tuesday.
The recipient of the bone marrow was 19-year-old Sabyasachi Sahoo, a relapsed blood cancer patient from Kantamali under Baghamari police station in Khurda district. Sahoo was diagnosed with B-ALL (B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia) in August 2016. He had received full chemotherapy protocol, but the cancer relapsed a few years later. As this was a relapsed case, allogenic BMT was the last option, for which a search was initiated for a suitable donor.
While conventional allogenic BMT entails a nearly 100 per cent donor match with siblings being the primary donor, finding a donor in time is very difficult. However, recent advances have made haplo BMT a promising alternative as it enables transplant from half-matched donors. In this procedure, parents, children and other close relatives like uncles, cousins and aunts can become donors.
Head of the clinical hematology department and BMT unit Prof Rabindra Kumar Jena said HLA (human leucocytic antigen) matching is mandatory for successful allogenic BMT. Earlier 90-100 per cent HLA matching from sibling donor (brother/sister) was accepted for allogenic BMT to achieve high success rate.
“Chance of such HLA matching with unrelated donor was a possibility but very rare. Even if it is available from the marrow registry, it was prohibitively expensive to the tune of Rs 10 lakhs to Rs 30 lakh. Finding suitable HLA match from the registry was beyond the reach of common man. This deprived most of the needy patients from a life-saving option. Haplo BMT can now provide a viable alternative for the patients,” he said.
Sahoo has a 15-year-old younger brother who tests revealed 50 per cent (5/10) match. After the decision for haplo was taken, the stem cell collected from his younger brother was transplanted by a team of doctors and BMT led by Prof Jena on Tuesday.“The patient will have to undergo treatment in the BMT unit for another three weeks with irradiated blood, platelet and other supportive measures as per the standard protocol,” Prof Jena said.
He said haplo BMT has started in India since one year but is very expensive. The cost varies from Rs 40-Rs 50 lakhs outside Odisha. However, Odisha is the first state to offer such advanced treatment free of cost to the patient under Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s mission to ensure universal free health care services for all, he said.