Medical Education and Skill Development Minister Sharan Prakash Patil and doctors interacting with the patient at Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncologyย in Bengaluru.
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The State-run Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology (KMIO) has crossed a milestone by successfully completing the first paediatric matched sibling donor allogeneic bone marrow transplant (BMT) on a 14-year-old patient.
The girl, Archana (name changed), suffering from acute myeloid leukemia (a type of blood cancer) was admitted to Kidwai hospital about two months ago. Her father is a daily wage labourer and mother is a garment factory worker, whose Employeesโ State Insurance (ESI) scheme was utilised for the girlโs cancer treatment.
Vasundhara Kailasnath, paediatric BMT physician at Kidwai, who along with a team of doctors performed the transplant, told The Hindu that the girlโs cancer was refractory. โThis means her cancer was resistant to conventional chemotherapy and had a very high chance of relapse. She presented with fever and severe fatigue. Luckily for this teenager, her younger brother was a complete genetic match (12/12 HLA match) and the transplant was done on June 12. The girl was discharged on Friday,โ the doctor said.
First in government hospital
โWe had to give her a high dose of chemotherapy before conducting the allogeneic BMT using the stem cells from her younger brother. While it usually takes 14-21 days for the stem cells to regenerate, in her case we achieved 100% success in 14 days. This is the first such transplant being done in a government set-up in the State,โ Dr. Kailasnath said.
Discharging the patient at Kidwai in the presence of Archanaโs parents and the team of doctors, Sharan Prakash Patil, Medical Education and Skill Development Minister, said the the transplant was successful and the girl is currently disease-free.
Expensive in private hospitals
The Minister said usually, in private hospitals, the cost of autologous transplants range from โน7 lakh to โน15 lakh and allogeneic BMTs cost about โน15 lakh to โน45 lakh. โKMIO has been successful in providing these BMTs at almost free of cost to patients by utilising the Prime Ministerโs Relief Fund, the Chief Ministerโs Relief Fund, SCP/TSP scheme, ESI, and CGHS schemes. In this case, the entire cost was covered under the ESI scheme,โ he said.
Kidwai administrator N. Manjushree said the need of the hour was to make BMT services easily available, accessible, and affordable to the diseased and vulnerable population of the State.
โKidwai institute has Indiaโs largest State-run BMT Unit with a 14-bed facility, including an intensive care unit. KMIO BMT Unit was conceptualised to provide free treatment to the most needy and unaffordable strata of our society,โ she said.
The first paediatric BMT at KMIO was performed in April 2022. Since then, 90 paediatric and adult BMTs have been successfully completed. โWe have 15-20 non-malignant and 12-15 malignant cases lined up for both autologous and allogeneic BMTs,โ Dr. Kailasnath added.
