Srinagar, Jun 23: Jammu and Kashmir’s premier tertiary care hospital SKIMS on Tuesday announced the successful completion of its first Matched Unrelated Donor (MUD) stem cell transplant, a procedure doctors said usually costs between Rs 30 lakh and Rs 40 lakh at many centres across the country.
Addressing a press conference here, SKIMS Director Dr Ashraf Ganie described the transplant as a major milestone for the institution and said the procedure was carried out on a three-year-old child, Luqman, who received stem cells from an unrelated donor identified in Poland through an international donor network.
He said the hospital managed to perform the transplant at a fraction of the usual cost, with most expenses related only to medicines, while donor identification, transportation and other logistical support were arranged through the network.
Doctors from the Department of Hematology said the achievement would benefit patients who do not find a fully matched donor among family members.
They said Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) matching is crucial for stem cell transplantation and that only about 25-30 per cent of patients are able to find a suitable match among siblings.
For the remaining patients, the hospital has been using alternative approaches, including half-matched transplants from family members, but unrelated donor transplants provide another treatment option for eligible patients, they said.
The doctors said the MUD transplant programme was launched with the support of the administration and has shown encouraging results.
They said stem cells are now collected from peripheral blood through a non-invasive process similar to blood donation, replacing older methods that required bone marrow extraction.
The hospital’s hematology team said the transplant was a life-saving procedure for patients suffering from serious blood disorders and that the success rates at SKIMS were comparable with national and international standards.
The doctors also appealed to people to come forward for stem cell donation and assured that the procedure is safe, with only minor risks similar to those associated with blood donation.
They said the successful transplant marked a significant step in expanding advanced treatment options for patients in Jammu and Kashmir. (KNS).
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