Increased awareness on blood stem cell and bone marrow donation will save patients who suffer from blood cancers and genetic disorders, said L. Ajeitha, consultant, Paediatric Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplant at GKNM Hospital, Coimbatore. Though several private organisations and NGOs are maintaining donor registries and helping needy patients, there was a lack of awareness on blood stem cell and bone marrow donation.
Bone marrow transplant involves transfusion of bone marrow stem cells from a healthy donor to a person suffering from diseases including leukaemia, thalassemia and sickle cell anaemia. For the treatment of genetic disorders and blood cancers, healthy stem cells from the blood or bone marrow of another person is transferred to the patient, explained Dr. Ajeitha.
“While bone marrow donation is done under anaesthesia, the blood stem cell donation involves collection of stem cells from the blood using a machine and the remaining blood is re-injected into the donor. A stem cell donor for a child can be a sibling who is HLA-matched, an HLA-matched unrelated donor or one of the parents even if they are half-matched,” she said.
The Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA) matching is a genetic test that matches patients and donors for procedures including stem cell and bone marrow transplant. A donor is normally found within family circles or through donor registries which maintain HLA typing reports of voluntary donors.
Dr. Ajeitha added that the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit of GKNM Hospital started in 2020 performed more than 25 bone marrow transplants, including complex procedures such as the haploidentical transplantation in both children and adults. Recently, the unit performed complex bone marrow transplants for two children with genetic disorders in which a diseased gene in the patient is replaced by a healthy gene in the stem cells of the donor.
