The hospital decided to go for granulocyte aphresis – a procedure that separates WBC from the donor blood for transfusion in to the recipient.
The KEM hospital has given a fresh lease of life to a 20-year-old Satara man, who was suffering from continual high grade fever due to an infection. The patient of aplastic anaemia had a low white blood cell (WBC) count, which was leading to the infection, and even antibiotics had stopped working on him.
The hospital decided to go for granulocyte aphresis – a procedure that separates WBC from the donor blood for transfusion in to the recipient. The procedure was done for the first time in a public hospital in Maharashtra. In the city, two private hospitals have the facility for the procedure that costs between Rs25,000-30,000.
"Aplastic anaemia is a condition that occurs when the body stops producing enough new blood cells. The normal WBC range in human blood is around 5,000 per microlitre (mcL). In this patient's case, it was less than 850 per mcL. This was leading to uncontrolled infection and high fever," said Dr Jayshree Sharma, head of the transfusion medicine department.
The patient has already undergone two rounds of granulocyte aphresis. "He will undergo the third round of transfusion on Wednesday. He may require two more rounds. He is responding well to the treatment," said Dr Chandrakala, haematologist under whom the patient is getting the treatment.
Granulocytes are used in specialised transfusion to treat infections that are unresponsive to antibiotics or antifungal therapies. In this process, granulocytes must be collected from a donor having the same blood group as the patient.
"Donors are given the growth factor injection and steroid tablets 12 hours prior to the procedure to stimulate the production of granulocytes. It takes between 2-3 hours to collect enough granulocytes for one dose. Since granulocytes have a very short storage period, they should be transfused within 6-24 hours," said Dr Sharma.
Dr Chandrakala said the alternative to granulocyte aphresis is bone marrow transplant that costs Rs15-20 lakh. "Granulocyte transfusions are beneficial to neutropenic patients with severe systemic bacterial or invasive fungal infections, aplastic anaemia, or life threatening infections not responding to antibiotics. We are proud that we can offer this treatment free of cost to the patients now," said Dr Avinash Supe, dean of the KEM hospital.
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