cordblood banking

Eight year old girl Pratima Aich from Dum Dum, Kolkata, who was suffering from neuroblastoma, a type of abdominal cancer, under went an autologus bone marrow stem cell transplantation at Kolkata.

Pratima’s cancer was detected on last year October. when her father took her at Mumbai for the treatment. She was advised for an urgent bone marrow stem cell transplantation as the cancer was in an advanced stage and the transplant is required to help recover the damaged bone marrow.

According to a city based paediatric haematologist, Dr Arpita Bhattacharyya, in paediatric cancers like neuroblastoma, very high doses of chemotherapy are required. Which destroys the bone marrow completely and threatens the life of the children.

Pratima’s stem cell transplantation was done on April 19 at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Cancer Research Institute in Park Lane, under the supervision of Dr Ashish Mukherjee and his team. The bone marrow was extracted from the pelvic bone, and stored at minus 80 degrees Celsius for a month and finally infused intravenously. The entire procedure costs about Rs. 6 lakhs. Patient will be kept in strict observation and treatment for another 3 months.

Though this is the first pediatric stem cell transplantation in the city, but doctors at NRS hospital in the month of February already have conducted a bone marrow transplantation on a blood cancer patient named Bela Samanta. Bela was 37 years old and and was suffering from multiple myeloma.

Source: The Telegraph

Filed under Adult Stem Cell, Cancer, Liver, Stem Cell | Comment Below