Vadodara's SSG Hospital to start Stem cell harvesting

The blood centre of SSG Hospital is the biggest facility in central Gujarat. It has secured the approval of the Central Licensing Approval Authority (CLAA) to collect stem cells. This is a milestone in making bone marrow transplants less expensive and more affordable for patients in near future.

SSG Hospital's medical superintendent Dr Ranjan Aiyer told Times of India," It is a very essential and a firm step towards establishing a fully independent bone marrow transplant unit at our hospital." The hospital has secured an apheresis license. It is a medical technique by which a substance is removed from the body. Such licensed blood centres are either available at private hospitals or hospitals running on public-private-partnership mode. However, the treatment is quite expensive.

The hospital has already treated a 71-year-old female patient suffering from multiple myeloma (cancer that forms in a type of white blood cell called a plasma cell) on Tuesday by conducting its third autologous stem cell transplant on her. At private hospitals, such stem cell transplants cost several millions of rupees, however, patients at SSG Hospital received the treatment for Rs 30,000.

Stating that the hospital currently has to rely on private/ corporate laboratory setups for such transplants, Dr Aiyer stated, " But our aim is to significantly reduce the cost to cover beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana". Explaining the whole process of the treatment, he further added, "To raise the number of stem cells in peripheral blood, we have to give an injection which stimulates the body to generate more stem cells and mobilise them to the peripheral blood for harvesting these for autologous transplant in patients of blood cancers, advanced solid tumours and many haematological disorders."

Stem cells are immature cells circulating in peripheral blood in small numbers. They are capable of generating blood cells in the body.