BMT In India

A bone marrow transplant is a procedure performed to replace damaged or destroyed bone marrow stem cells with healthy bone marrow stem cells. The procedure involves extracting the healthy stem cells, filtering those cells, and giving them back, either to the donor himself, or to another person(the recipient). The goal of BMT is to transfuse healthy stem cells into a person, after his or her own unhealthy bone marrow has been treated to kill the abnormal cells.

Types of BMT

There are different types of bone marrow transplants depending on who the donor is. The different types of BMT include the following:

Autologous bone marrow transplant: It is defined as “taken from an individual’s own cells”, where the patient has donated stem cells to be used for their own transplant.

Allogeneic bone marrow transplant: The donor has been selected based on their HLA type (genetic match) and that of the patient. Stem cells are then taken from an HLA matched donor.

Siblings (Matched related donor/ MRD) - Brothers/sisters are the best choice as donors, provided that their HLA type matches with that of the recipient.

Parent/Children (Haploidentical stem cell transplant): A haploid-identical match is when the donor is a parent and the genetic match is at least half identical to the recipient's.

Unrelated bone marrow transplants (UBMT) or matched unrelated donor (MUD): The HLA matched marrow or stem cells are from an unrelated donor, who has been found through bone marrow registries.

Umbilical cord blood transplant: Stem cells are taken from an umbilical cord immediately after delivery of an infant. The stem cells are tested, typed, counted, and frozen until they are needed for a transplant.

Bone Marrow Transplant is highly advanced at several hospitals in India and patients from all parts of the world come to India to get this treatment. Since this treatment is spread over 1-2 months period the patient and the family prefer a country where not only the treatment is highly advanced but the other associated costs of boarding, lodging and travelling are low and India offers the best cost advantage to such patients.

Diseases that can be treated by BMT

Diseases that can be treated are :

Malignant disease :

Multiple myeloma

Relapsed Hodgkins Disease

Relapsed Non Hodgkins Lymphoma (NHL)

Neuroblastoma

Relapsed Ewings Sarcoma

Metastatic Ewings Sarcoma

Metastatic Germ cell tumors

Medulloblastoma, other brain tumors

Other solid malignancy

MDS

AML

High Risk ALL

Relapsed or Refractory AML/ALL

CML

Refractory Lymphomas

Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPN)

Non-Malignant disease :

Severe Autoimmune Diseases

Multiple Sclerosis

Aplastic Anemia

Thalassemia

Severe Immunodeficiency disorders

Inherited Metabolic disorders

What is the Cost of BMT in India?

The cost of Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) procedure in India is in the range of USD 45000 - 60000. Since there are many variables in the procedure it is difficult to predict an accurate cost for BMT procedure. This is the reason why we give a cost range for the treatment.

Best Doctors and the Hospitals

Dr Dharma Choudhary is one of the most experienced doctor for doing the Bone Marrow Transplant in India. He is available at Fortis Hospital in the city of Gurgaon. The hospital is just 30 minutes drive from the International Airport at New Delhi. The team of doctors led by Dr Rahul Bhargava has done a large number of such procedures in the last 10 years with excellent outcomes.

Procedure

Bone Marrow Transplant Donors :

For an Allogeneic Transplant, a suitable (HLA matched) donor is a must requirement.

What is HLA typing?

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing is used to match a suitable donor for bone marrow transplant. The best transplant outcome is obtained when a patient’s HLA and the donor’s HLA closely match.

Who can be the ideal donor?

The best possible chance to get the HLA typing match is from siblings. In about 30% of the cases the patient will get a good match from their sisters / brothers. If the patient is not getting suitable HLA match with their siblings then the next possibility is the half matched HLA from their parents or children. Half of the HLA markers come from the mother and half from father. It is unlikely that other family members HLA will match the patient.

How to find donor outside the family member?

If the patient does not have suitable match in the family, then transplant team may look for an unrelated donor. In this case stem cell has to be procured from domestic/ international registry.

Is there any cost involved in preliminary Donor search from the registry?

No, there is no charge involved for a preliminary donor search. If a suitable donor is found, only then the patient has to borne the cost for Stem cell procurement which has to be paid to the donor registry.

What are the kind of preparation required for the donor?

Once the potential donor is identified then he or she will undergo several tests. Tests related to his or her health will be done to determine the extent of the match.

Once a match for a patient needing a bone marrow transplant is found, then stem cells will be collected either by a bone marrow harvest or peripheral blood stem cell collection. Of the two, peripheral blood stem cell donations are now more common 95%, which is painless.

Donor has to take growth factor injection 2-5 days before his stem cell donation. Donor has to admitted and hospitalised for 1 -3 days.

Our Hospitals

Our hospitals are located in the northern part of India specially in the NCR region comprising New Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Faridabad which all are within a distance of 20-50 kms from the New Delhi airport. Our hospitals are super specialty in the fields of Neurosurgery, Cardiology, Joint Replacement, Cancer Care, Liver and Kidney Transplants, Cosmetic Surgery and many other branches of medicine. All our hospitals offer quality treatment and are accreditated by NABH or JCI. For patients coming from other countries our team members would receive you at the airport and escort you to the hospital or the hotel as the case maybe.

Technology at our Disposal

We have the latest MRI, CT Scan, Digital X-Ray, Mammography, Ultrasound, Colour Doppler, PET CT Scan, Gamma Camera (Nuclear Medicine Scans), Image Guided Radiation Therapy, Gamma Knife, Cyber Knife, Thoracosopy, Sleep Study, Lung Ultrasound, Bronchoscopy, EBUS TACE, PTBD, TARE, Liver Biopsy, Lung Biopsy etc which gives us the diagnostic and theraputic confidence for providing the right treatment.

Modular fully equipped Operation Theatres with Computer Navigation and C-Arm backed by a state of art ICU helps us in providing world class treatment to our patients. We are equipped to handle the most complex of the surgeries due to the state of art cutting edge technology.