Mangaluru: Yenepoya Medical College Hospital has successfully conducted the first-ever bone marrow transplant in Mangaluru by treating a 40-year-old patient diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer and giving him a new lease of life through a highly complicated stem cell transfer technique.

The patient had back pain radiating to the lower limb which was later diagnosed as multiple myeloma. This was then confirmed by immune fixation. He received sixteen weeks of chemotherapy to which he responded very well. He was later treated with autologous bone marrow transplant which lasted for twenty days, said medical oncologist, Dr Guruprasad Bhat.

He said that the bone marrow transplant involves three major steps – stem cell collection, high dose chemotherapy and stem cell transfusion. The patient was admitted to the hospital after his bone marrow was in remission due to cancer. He received growth factors for four days and then his stem cells were harvested after his total cell count reached 30,000. The patient was given high dose chemotherapy.

The previously collected stem cells were transfused on the next day. All complications were managed with appropriate medications and under strict aseptic measures for the next 15 days. During the procedure, the patient was in an isolated sterile environment and strict barrier nursing was followed.

The Yenepoya Medical College Hospital has successfully established facilities and dedicated beds for autologous stem cell transplant programme which can be used for treating multiple myeloma, relapsed Hodgkin’s lymphoma, relapsed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, relapsed acute promyelocytic leukemia and paediatric small round cell tumours (Neuroblastoma and Germ Cell Tumour).