Thanjavur child survives critical bone marrow transplant

Since the child had a rare blood group (AB Negative), it was a challenge for her parents to manage the blood transfusions. They opted to go ahead with a Haploidentical Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) - using her half-matched mother as a donor.

The surgery, a first-of-its-kind in the state, was performed at the Institute of Oncology, Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Gleneagles Global Hospital and the child is on the road to recovery.

Speaking about the transplant, Dr Vimal Kumar, Consultant, Paediatric Haemato-oncology and BMT, at the hospital, said, “The chances of getting a fully matched unrelated donor in a diverse country like India is very less, since only 25 per cent of children have fully HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) matched donors in their families. It is therefore very important to create awareness among parents that even the half-matched stem cell (haploidentical) transplants will be a highly successful curative option for children with Thalassaemia.”

Estimates in India indicate that there are around one lakh patients with thalassemia syndrome in our country and around 10,000 to 12,000 children are added every year to this pool. “The magnitude of the problem of thalassaemia is huge in our country. We need to have effective screening programmes where thalassaemia carriers have antenatal testing done to prevent birth of a child with Thalassaemia Major,” said Dr Deenadayalan, Paediatric Haemeto-oncologist at the hospital.