JAIPUR: City doctors performed a bone marrow transplant on a 55-year-old patient who is suffering from multiple myeloma, a type of white blood cell called a plasma cell that makes antibodies for fighting infections in the body. The patient was discharged from the hospital on Monday.
“We decided to give high dose of chemotherapy and autologous bone marrow transplant. Before chemotherapy, we collected patient’s hematopoietic stem cells that form blood and immune cells. Following that, we gave the patient a high dose of chemotherapy. On the next day, we infused the hematopoietic stem cells back into his body and lodged them in the bone marrow, which started producing blood again in the body,” said Dr Hemant Malhotra, director of the Ram Cancer Centre, Mahatma Gandhi Hospital, which became the third hospital in the city for performing bone marrow transplant.
Dr Ajay Yadav, medical oncologist of the hospital said, “The patient was diagnosed as having multiple myeloma in May. He was having complains of bone pains and lump in the chest region. The disease was initially treated with chemotherapy and it was responded well. After which autologous bone marrow transplant was performed this month. The patient was admitted in strict isolation for nearly a month.”
The transplant was performed on November 6. He remained in the isolation for at least 14 days as there were high chances of infection as the immunity of the patient was quite low to fight against any infection.
The process of bone marrow regeneration takes 2-3 weeks during which the patient is severely immunocompromised and is to remain admitted under strict isolation.