Fortis Centre for Bone Marrow Transplant (CBMT)

Fortis Hospitals Bannerghatta offers a sure and steady helping hand to effective cancer treatment. This is what makes Fortis Hospitals Bannerghatta the best in its league when it comes to trusted cancer care including providing excellence in Bone Marrow Transplantation in Bangalore. Setting the highest standards in bone marrow transplantation techniques comes easily to the team of onco-specialists who are enriched with adroitness and trained skills required for this specialized treatment.

Bone Marrow Transplantation is a time-tested and trusted solution to cancer treatment when all other methods do not provide the expected results. Our blood cells are produced by the soft tissues present within our bones. This is called bone marrow. During cancer treatment involving high doses of chemotherapy or radiation, sometimes the bone marrow is affected and these need to be replaced as soon as possible, for healthy blood cells to be produced. This is known as Bone Marrow Transplantation and requires healthy matching donors, either from the patient’s family or from others, to extract the bone marrow from.

At Fortis Hospitals Bannerghatta, Bone Marrow Transplantation is administered under great care and precision by our team of highly skilled onco specialists. Since excellence is our watchword at Fortis Hospitals Bannerghatta, it is a given that we have top of the line team of medical oncologists, clinical hematologists, transplant oncosurgeon, doctors from allied specialties, and trained nurses to successfully administer the best transplant procedures.

Bone Marrow Transplantation is the best treatment solution for all lethal blood cancers that include leukemia, lymphoma, and myelomas, other cancers such as germ cell tumors, as well as aplastic anemia, a non-cancerous disorder which results in the destruction and dysfunction of the bone marrow in some patients.

Having the premium facilities and state of the art equipment in the administration of bone marrow transplant procedures is one of the big plusses for Fortis Hospitals Bannerghatta. The healthcare behemoth of Bangalore believes in offering the best in all its services and this is seen in its hospital paraphernalia. Fortis Hospitals Bannerghatta boasts of the most advanced HEPA filtered room to reduce the probability of airborne infections, and Radiology services to make the process of bone marrow transplantation comfortable for the patient, making it one of the best in this revolutionary cancer treatment method.

Stem Cell Therapy in Bangalore

At the core of care and treatment in the medical world, lies the sentiment of making the entire process less painful and traumatic for the patients. This is precisely what our compassionate doctors believe in and follow magnanimously.

While the success story of the bone marrow transplant technique is more than five decades, doctors at Fortis Hospital Bannerghatta have been accomplishing their own successful milestones in the treatment of not only the dreaded cancer, but also other non-cancer disorders using this revolutionary method also known as Stem Cell Therapy.

Stem Cell therapy involves the use of healthy bone marrow cells to regenerate damaged tissues and cells during chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

With their string of achievements in the administration of Stem Cell therapy, the doctors at Fortis Hospital Bannerghatta have defined excellence in bone marrow transplant, placing the hospital on the top of the best hospital list not only in Bangalore but also in India.

With India becoming a preferred destination in health tourism, prominent healthcare organization s like Fortis Hospital Bannerghatta are rising to meet the high standards in treatment techniques such as Stem Cell Therapy by introducing a specialized treatment program for bone marrow transplant.

With the belief of the adage ‘prevention is better than cure’, oncologists at Fortis Hospital Bannerghatta are harnessing the power of stem cells to not only treat certain cancers but to also prevent certain life-threatening diseases. Stem Cell therapy is now skillfully administered to prevent and treat neuro-degenerative diseases and other conditions such as spinal cord injuries, brain injury, heart disease, for kidney transplants, for muscle and ligament regeneration, etc.

Bone Marrow Test

Since a random blood test may not reveal the hidden disease in the blood or tissues, or how much it has progressed, doctors recommend a bone marrow test. There are two types of bone marrow tests – biopsy and aspiration.

The biopsy involves the collection of bone marrow tissue through a large needle.

The aspiration method allows the doctor to collect the bone marrow fluid using a finer needle. Usually, both procedures are done simultaneously for doctors to diagnose and arrive at the best treatment process post the tests.

In the case of a bone marrow transplant procedure, the bone marrow tests are carried out at various places in the body usually from the back of the pelvic bone. This is to ensure that there is enough stock of healthy stem cells to transplant into the patient.

Both the aspiration and biopsy tests are conducted to diagnose blood disorders like anemia or abnormal white blood cell count, or to find if cancer has spread to the bone marrow or even certain infections that could begin in the bone marrow itself.

Doctors at Fortis Hospital Bannerghatta are the best in their domain to conduct and diagnose these significant tests in the most contained, comfortable and secure environments.

Stem Cell Transplant Process

The most effective treatment and care begins with the patient’s comfort. This comes naturally and easily to the doctors at Fortis Hospital Bannerghatta who take pride and concern for a patient’s complete healthy recovery. This undoubtedly makes our teams the best in their fraternity. This is why a pathbreaking medical technique such as stem cell transplant is administered with high precision and excellence at Fortis Hospital Bannerghatta riding the crest of Bangalore’s best.

Stem Cell Transplant is of two types – one, where the healthy stem cells are extracted from the patient and frozen before the procedure. These healthy cells are then administered to the patient after the high dose chemotherapy.  The other method is where the stem cells are procured from a matching donor, either from within the patient’s family or from a person outside the family.

The entire transplant treatment begins with administration of high dose chemotherapy to destroy the malignant cancer-causing cells. Following this, the collected stem cells are injected into the patient’s bloodstream. These healthy stem cells travel to the patient’s bone marrow and begin producing new and healthy blood cells, thus replacing the ones either lost or damaged during the high dose of chemotherapy.

No wonder then that stem cell transplant is a hope that holds promise for those debilitated with cancer.

There are various types of donor transplants that make the procedure easier. Before extracting the stem cells from the donors, doctors test the patient’s blood to ascertain the human leukocyte antigen (HLA), a protein in the blood which serves as a marker. This HLA is used to match a donor cell.

Haploidentical Transplant

A haploidentical transplant is a newer type of transplant technique that involves a close member of the patient’s family who is only a half-match for the transplant process. If you are a patient, a haplo-identical donor of the stem cells could be your child, mother or father, and not a cousin, aunt or uncle. The process of stem cell collection and administering, however, remains the same. The HLA of the half-match donor is used to match that of the patient.

Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant

The word ‘allo’ means ‘other’. Similar to a blood donation, stem cell donors can also be strangers. And while in some cases the patient is not able to find either a donor from the family or even a half-match, transplant doctors opt for an unrelated donor with a hundred percent HLA match.

Upon conducting the relevant tests and donor profiles to ascertain if the donor is healthy without any underlying disease, the stem cells are extracted and transplanted into the patient’s blood stream.

Autologous Stem Cell Transplant

The meaning of ‘auto’ is ‘self’.  In this type of transplant, the healthy stem cells are removed from the patient before the high-dose chemotherapy or radiation treatment is administered. These are stored in a freezer and this process is called Cryopreservation. Following the high-dose chemotherapy or radiation treatments, the same stems cells are injected back into the patient’s body to add to the normal blood cells. Doctors also call this a ‘rescue’ transplant.

Bone Marrow Transplantation

The marrow or tissues in our bone crevices produce life-causing cells. Bone marrow is found in the breast bone, skull, hips, ribs and spine and contains stem cells that produce the body’s blood cells.

These healthy stem cells develop into one of the three types of mature blood cells – red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, and enter the bloodstream. Each of these blood cells has a distinct role to play. Red Blood Cells (RBCs) transport vital oxygen throughout the body while White Blood Cells (WBCs) fight infection. Platelets cause blood to clot. Some stem cells that circulate in the bloodstream are called peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs).

Stem Cell Donation

Stem Cell Donation Process

Similar to any type of donation process involving a precious life-giving source, the stem cell donation also involves the delicate process of the patient and the family.

While it is traumatic for the patient to go through the pain and stress of the disease, it is the close family that suffers in silence. At Fortis Hospital Bannerghatta, our doctors understand this and are empathetic to both the patient’s and family’s sentiments. Our specialized team of qualified counsellors hand-holds them through the entire process to make it easy and comfortable.

The patient’s complete medical history as well as the donors’ medical records is maintained and analysed well before the transplant procedure is carried out.

Stem Cell Donation Procedure

Stem cell donation procedure is similar to blood donation and is painless too. The stem cells from the bone marrow or the peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs) are extracted from the marrow cavity of your bone through a needle, under local anaesthesia. If the supply of stem cells is not enough for the patient, the process can be repeated. Both, marrow and PBSC donors can return to normal routine within a day or maybe a week. Just like your blood cells, stem cells too regenerate on their own, and the marrow will return to normal levels within a few weeks.