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New Delhi: Each year more than 50,000 bone marrow transplants happen across world. What started as a dream of infusing stem cell backed and supported by science flourished as a safe procedure providing hope and curing millions.
Dr Rahul Bhargava, Principal Director & Chief BMT, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram, said that bone marrow transplant is a procedure of literally changing blood by virtue of replacing the stem cell either from self which is called autologous which is generally done for lymphoma myeloma and pediatric brain tumors.
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He said, “Blood cancer like acute myeloid Leukemia where stem cell is dysfunction or non-functional needs to get fresh stem cells which are not blood group matched but a special type of matching called HLA which is done by blood or a swab. Once identified, a donor has to donate 300 ml of blood in 4 to 5 hours from the veins in the arm.”
These are the cells which are immediately replenishable and safe like normal blood transfusion. These stem cells when taken from sibling its called full match but with shrinking families finding donor can be difficult. Again science came to rescue where donor registry was created and depending upon ethnicity the chances to find a full match but still that leaves 50 percent people without donors.
Recent advancements in bone marrow transplants
There have been several recent advancements in bone marrow transplants, including:
• Improved donor matching: Next-generation sequencing (NGS) and high-resolution typing have significantly improved the accuracy of HLA matching, making it possible to find better matches for patients.
• Reduced-intensity conditioning (RIC) regimens: RIC regimens are less toxic than traditional conditioning regimens, making bone marrow transplants more accessible to older and sicker patients.
• Haploidentical transplantation: Haploidentical transplantation allows patients to receive stem cells from a partially matched donor, such as a parent or child. This has expanded the donor pool and made bone marrow transplants possible for more patients.
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• Advances in immunosuppressive therapy: New immunosuppressive drugs with fewer side effects and improved efficacy have been developed to prevent and treat graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a serious complication of bone marrow transplants.
• T-cell depletion with memory cell infusion: This new procedure helps to reduce the risk of GVHD by depleting the donor’s T cells and then infusing the recipient with their own memory cells. This helps to protect the recipient from infections while reducing the risk of GVHD.
