Bone Marrow or Stem cell are soft spongy tissues found in the center of bones that produces the blood cells for the body. It is a special kind of complex surgery that’s carried out on patients with sickle cell disease or particular types of cancers like leukemia, lymphomas and other cancer related diseases.
Bone marrow transplantation also known as sickle cell transplant begins after the high dose of chemo-therapy is over and naturally involves extraction of healthy blood cells from the donor’s bone marrow and transfusing them to the receiver’s blood stream, resulting in producing healthy blood cells again.
What is Bone Marrow Transplant?
Getting the bone marrow transplant is termed to a non-surgical procedure. The treatment is just like blood transfusion, where the healthy cells are introduced to the patient’s blood via central venous catheter.
According to advanced techniques in the best Indian hospitals who performing Bone Marrow Transplant in India are now accomplished by a bone marrow transplant with only 50% match among the donor and receiver.
Bone Marrow Transplant requires certain criteria – this is a way of giving very high dose of chemotherapy, wherein sometimes which includes whole body radiotherapy. This treatment targets to attempt to cure some types of cancer, such as
- Leukaemia
- Lymphoma
- Myeloma
- Sickle Cell
This process of bone marrow (also termed as cord blood transplant) replaces unhealthy blood forming cells with the healthy ones. A fact that blood stem cells are termed as immature cells which can grow into white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets.
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2 Types of Bone Marrow Transplant
- An autologous transplant – While treating the cancer patients using high doses of chemotherapy destroys the patients bone marrow as a side effect. These autologous blood cells intact replace the damaged marrow. This entire process of autologous transplants fights certain cancers such as lymphoma.
- An allogeneic transplant – the way of treating cancers in the blood which offers the added advantage of using the donor’s immune system to identify and demolish cancer cells. This transplant is used to treat some of non-cancerous diseases which relates to sickle cell anemia. This kind transplant replaces imperfect marrow cells with donor’s healthy cells.
Who May Need Bone Marrow Transplant?
Bone marrow transplants are performed when a person’s marrow isn’t functioning properly. Some of the reasons as to why you may need a transplant include:
- Cancer that affect the marrow, such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma
- Bone marrow damage caused due to chemotherapy
- Sickle cell anemia, which is an inherited disorder that causes recurring infections
- Aplastic anemia is a condition when the bone marrow stops producing new blood cells in the body
- Thalassemia
Risk after Bone Marrow Transplant Surgery
Most of the patient’s gone through stem cell transplant are prone to GvHD (a complex illness) but it differs from patient to patient. This infact can happen if the patient had a bone marrow transplant or stem cell transplant from another person’s donated cells. On an average of 50% of patients who had an allogeneic transplant will be prone to develop GvHD.
Other major risk a patient may experience after bone marrow transplant:
- Sudden drop in blood pressure
- Severe or minor headache
- Nausea
- Body Pain and Fever
How to Choose Best Hospital for Bone Marrow Transplant?
A patients planning to get bone marrow transplant should always opt for Hospital and surgeon for their stem cell transplant surgery.
The hospital opted to get your bone marrow transplant must have following facilities:
- Dedicated Operating theatres
- Well qualified and experienced surgeons
- State-of-the-Art Intensive Care Units
- High end laboratories for all the tests and investigations related to the treatment
- Specialty blood bank facilities
- Dedicated wards and rooms for bone transplant patients
- Counsellors and Transplantation Coordinators to take care of all your needs.
- Cavitron ultrasonic surgical aspirator, Ultrasonic blood vessel sealing systems and Argon laser coagulation systems.
- Qualified medical and nursing staff.
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Cost Incurred with Bone Marrow Transplant
In well-known big hospitals for bone marrow transplant in India may cost you between INR 15 to INR 20 lakh (15000 USD to 20000 USD) depending upon the type of transplantation and post-surgery treatment requirements, while one can expect the same to be almost cut down 20-30% in other hospital.
For the international, the cost of bone marrow transplant in India may rise up as one would add up to the travelling, lodging and support expenses. In India the cost of BMT transplant surgery is effectively very-less when compared to the same bone marrow transplant surgery in the developed western countries like the US or UK, which would cost patients over $100000 – $200000 (INR 65 lakh-INR 1.3 crore).
11 Best Hospitals in India for Bone Marrow Transplant
- Apollo Hospital
- BLK Super Speciality Hospital, New Delhi
- Fortis Hospital, Noida
- Max Super Speciality Hospital, New Delhi
- Columbia Asia Hospital
- Manipal Hospital
- Medanta Hospital
- Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology
- BGS Global Hospital
- Dr. Kamakshi Memorial Hospital
- Bharathiraja Speciality Hospital and Research Centre
Conclusion
Bone marrow transplant is a lifesaving costly surgery, therefore it is important to gain as much as knowledge about the treatment and hospital from where you are getting your treatment to get your transplant successful without any complications.
