Bhubaneswar: The Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital has added another feather to its cap by successfully conducting haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) on a female patient suffering from acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).
It is worth mentioning that the hospital used to conduct Autologous and Allogenic Stem Cell Transplantation. But it was the first time that it had undertaken a haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation successfully.
Explaining about haploidentical transplant, Priyanka Samal, head of the department of clinical hematology of the medical college, said, “The haploidentical transplant is a type of allogeneic transplant in which healthy, blood-forming cells are taken from a half-matched donor to replace the unhealthy ones in the patient.”
Addressing mediapersons, Samal said, “The patient’s donor was her 21-year-old daughter. Human leukocyte antigens (HLA) of the donor matched half of her 51-year-old mother. The patient did display signs of complications after the transplantation but the same were managed aptly and aggressively.”
Surprisingly, transplantation-related mortality is said to be around 30 per cent in such cases while the relapse rate was around 40 per cent.
“She has already crossed 45 days of the transplantation safely,” said Samal adding that it was the first successful Haplo transplant in the state which was done at a very reasonable cost. She had undergone training on this particular transplant at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto a few months ago.
It may be mentioned that the same transplant was carried out earlier at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack. More than a week after first haplo bone marrow transplant was successfully performed at the state’s premier hospital, the patient died.
The recipient of the bone marrow was 19-year-old Subhranshu Sahoo, a relapsed blood cancer patient from Khurda district.
The clinical haematology department of the SCB Medical College and Hospital had successfully performed the transplantation on Sahoo. His health condition was gradually improving. However, he passed away leaving his relatives and doctors in a state of shock.
