CHANDIGARH- Paras Health, One of the most prominent hospitals in this region, has achieved an unprecedented success by successfully performing bone marrow transplant on patients. Paras Hospital Panchkula is the first private sector hospital in the tricity region to start allogeneic as well as autologous bone marrow transplant (BMT). A bone marrow transplant is a medical procedure performed to replace bone marrow that has been damaged or destroyed by disease, infection, or chemotherapy. This procedure involves transplanting blood stem cells, which travel to the bone marrow where they produce new blood cells and promote growth of new marrow.
“For patients of Refractory Blood cancer, who do not respond to chemotherapy drugs, the bone marrow transplant (BMT) is the only treatment which is resulting in the long-time survival of such patients. Besides, the Thalassemia patients also prefer the BMT procedure in India, where 10,000 people get diagnosed with the disease every year”, this was stated by a team of Doctors from Paras Hospitals Panchkula during an awareness campaign on ‘Blood Cancers and Bone Marrow Transplant’. Present on the occasion were Dr Ajay Sharma, director, Haemotology and Bone Marrow Transplant, Dr (Brig) Rajeshwar Singh, director, medical oncology, Dr. Chitresh Aggarwal senior consultant, medical oncology and Dr Puneet Sachdeva, Senior Consultant Transfusion Medicine from Paras Health Panchkula
While addressing the public on Wednesday, Dr Ajay Sharma, director, Haemotology and Bone Marrow Transplant, said, “Bone Marrow Transplant is a non surgical procedure in which damaged or diseased stem cells are replaced with healthy stem cells. A bone marrow transplant is usually offered as a solution for certain kinds of cancers as well as some other diseases which affect the production of blood cells. The treatment is a relief for blood cancer patients and in India, over 1.17 lakh patients are diagnosed with the blood cancer every year”.
According to Dr Jatinder Arora, Facility Director, Paras Health Panchkula, “Paras Hospital is fully equipped to provide treatment to any patient who needs BMT. The hospital offers the most state-of-the-art infrastructure and expert team of consultants who are available 24×7 for ensuring best health care services to the society.”
He added that due to minimum numbers of BMT centres in India, most of the patients suffering from blood cancer die while waiting for the transplant. Another irony is that with a population of 125 Crore, India has very few specialists who are trained for BMT.
Dr (Brig) Rajeshwar Singh, director, medical oncology, said, “In BMT procedure, the diseased or damaged bone marrow (a soft, spongy blood forming tissue present in the cavities of bones) is replaced with healthy bone marrow with the replacement marrow mostly from blood relations like brother/sister and parents. The procedure is mostly advised for patients with Thalassemia, Aplastic Anemia, Acute Leukemia, Sickle Cell Anemia, Lymphoma, Multiple Myloma and Myelodysplastic syndrome.”
Meanwhile, Dr Puneet Sachdeva, Senior Consultant Transfusion Medicine, said, “Paras Hospital Panchkula is providing allogenic as well as autologous bone marrow transplant. Also, the center is conducting unrelated and haplo- identical matched BMTs. The latter are needed when a matched donor is not available in the family”.
The doctors added that the bone marrow transplant is used to replace non-functioning bone marrow with a healthy functioning bone marrow. It is generally done in conditions such as leukemia, Aplastic Anemia, Thalassemia and Sickle Cell Anemia. Replace the bone marrow when a high dose of chemotherapy or radiation is given to treat a malignancy and then it is restored for its normal function. This procedure may be done for diseases such as Lymphoma, Neuroblastoma and Breast Cancer.
Also, replace bone marrow to prevent it from a genetic disease process such as Hurler’s syndrome, and Adrenoleukodystrophy, the doctors advised.
Paras Health aspires to be the largest private healthcare provider in North India by 2031 with 9000+ beds under its network. Of this, around 5000 beds will be added by FY 2028 through organic and inorganic expansion. The committed expansion pipeline of 2,000 + beds will be met through expansion at Kanpur, Srinagar, and Panchkula.