Mona Rajhans Beyondheadlines
Kolkata: A city based institute claimed on May, 6 that it has successfully performed the first ever non-matching transplant. The transplant was done over Master Moinaam Pal, a resident of Kolkata who suffered from HbE-Beta Thalassemia.
Moinaam Pal was given a mixture of cord stem cell and bone marrow stem cells from his younger sister. Strangely, the two siblings have different blood groups.
In the year 2006, when Moinaam was just 7 months old, his parents found him growing pale day by day. This took them to the doctors where they found out that Moinaam was suffering from HbE-Beta Thalassemia. It was a congenital disease, which meant he was born with it. Typically in this disease, the patient looses the red blood cells at an abrupt rate. Moinaam was constantly kept under medical treatment and had to undergo transfusions regularly to keep his heart pacing.
“We were told that it is an inherited blood disorder that results in excessive destruction of red blood cells and causes anaemia. While Moinaam had to undergo regular blood transfusions and medication to keep his red blood cell count at a normal level, our frantic search for an institute that could perform stem cell transplantations took us to the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Cancer Research Institute.” Moinaam’s father, Ashim Kumar Pal said at a press conference.
The Director of NSBC cancer research institute, Ashish Mukherjee asked the Pal couples to plan for a second child so that the stem cells transplantation could be done. In the year 2009, when Moinaam’s sister, Ahoma was born, her umbilical cord blood was immediately stored for her brother’s treatment.
This transplant serves as a landmark as the two siblings had differences in their blood groups. Moreover, the patient was given a mixture of the cord stem cells and the bone marrow stem cells. Ordinarily, any single transfusion could have taken much longer showing results in a span of 5 years. But the hybrid transfusion has started showing positive results in just 22 days.
This definitely serves as a landmark in the development of medical sciences giving much hope for such deceased patients.
