In nearly 75 per cent of the SAA cases, a match cannot be found within the family and an alternative donor is required
Nearly three years ago, when Banin Mohammad Humza, now 15, was diagnosed with severe aplastic anemia (SAA), a condition in which bone marrow does not make enough blood cells, her family did not know what the future held for them. After several attempts, the doctors in their country gave up and the Iraqi family decided to come to India. Little did they know that even that won't solve their problems as they couldn't find a matching donor.
But their painful year-long wait is now finally over, with a match being found in Germany.
"She started showing symptoms two-and-a-half-years ago. Her condition was deteriorating with each passing day and she would require frequent platelet and blood transfusion. We were worried about her condition," her father Mohammad Hamza said.
In nearly 75 per cent of the SAA cases, a match cannot be found within the family and an alternative donor is required. Doctors in India tried to find a suitable donor for Banin and checked all the registries of stem cell donors but in vain. So, they started looking at the registries of other countries. Fortunately, they have found a matching donor in Germany.
"The patient's condition was deteriorating and she was not responding to any medical therapy. We then started looking for a prospective donor to carry out a Matched Unrelated Donor (MUD) stem cell transplant. We put forth our request and stem cells of the donor, a 25-year-old male, were harvested in Germany and shipped to India. They were stored at minus 80 degrees Celsius temperature for two weeks, before being transplanted," Dr Prashant Mehta, bone marrow transplant specialist at the Asian Institute of Medical Sciences, Faridabad, said.
Banin then underwent chemotherapy to destroy the damaged cells in her body while the new cells were administered simultaneously. In the weeks that followed, the patient underwent intensive monitoring.
MUD transplant is uncommon in India due to risk of complications, besides logistic difficulties in procuring the cells from outside India. Globally, 45 million people are registered with the Bone Marrow Donor World Wide and other stem cell registries. In India, however, the donor pool is quite small.
"There are only 3 lakh donors in Indian registries, a minuscule number. Its not only important to have more donors but we also need the requisite technology to preserve the cells for a longer period," Dr N K Pandey, Chairman and Managing Director of the hospital, said.
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