TIL Desk Lucknow/ Medanta Hospital Lucknow has recently performed a successful AllogenicHaplo-identical (Half-HLA matched) bone marrow transplant in a 12 year old child suffering from high risk Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), which is a type of life threatening blood cancer. The hospital became the 1st private hospital in Central and Eastern U.P. to achieve this rare feat. The team led by Dr.Anshul Gupta, Director – Haematology, Haemato Oncology & Bone Marrow Transplant consisted of Dr.Deepankar Bhattacharya, Consultant – Haematology, Haemato Oncology & Bone Marrow Transplant; Dr. Ashish Tewari, Senior Consultant & Head – Transfusion Medicine & Blood Bank; Dr. Dilip Dubey, Director – Critical Care Medicine; and Dr.MadhumatiGoel, Director – Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.
While telling us more about the condition of the child, Dr.Anshul Gupta said, “The patient who hails from Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, presented 3 months back with complaints of fever, body ache, anaemia which on further investigations was found to be suffering from Acute Myeloid leukemia (AML). She was initially administered 2 cycles of chemotherapy to bring her disease under control following which she underwent haplo-identitical bone marrow transplant at Medanta Hospital, Lucknow. For the purpose of transplant, her father was chosen as a HLA half matched stem cell donor as doctors could not find any full matched HLA donor for her.”
Usually HLA matched sibling donors are the first choice for allogeneic stem cell transplant. However matched sibling donors are available for only 30% of the patients. Seventy percent patients have to resort to alternative donors that comprise Matched Unrelated Donor (MUD) through donor registries and/or haplo-identical donors. Dr. Dilip Dubey further said, “Since in this case, it was a HLA half matched transplant, there was a prolonged period (3 weeks) of severe neutropenia (very low white blood cell counts) during which the patient was kept in a specially designed HEPA filter room. On Day 15 post stem cell transplant, she successfully engrafted (blood counts recovered) and presently doing well.” With initiation of BMT services at Medanta Hospital Lucknow, the patients can be offered cure for various blood cancers and transfusion dependent anaemia’s like thalassemia, sickle cell anaemia etc.
