Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Centre (MSCC) located within the  Narayana Health City campus in Bengaluru has set up a 14-bed dedicated bone marrow transplant unit. The Centre has stated that  it is the largest in the country.
 
The facility was inaugurated by  Dr Anthony R Tersigni, president and CEO,  Ascension Health Alliance, USA in presence of Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairperson - Biocon and Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, chairman, Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals Group.
 
The bone marrow transplant unit at MSCC was established in October 2004 by Dr Devi Shetty with an objective to make high-end healthcare affordable and accessible to all. The unit has completed more than 200 stem cell transplants till date with approximately 140 of them being allogeneic stem cell transplants.  The best example of a non-cancerous disease, which can be completely cured by BMT, is thalassemia.
 
MSCC has partnered with ‘Cure Thalassemia’ which is a  group headed by Professor Lucarelli and Dr Sodani for all thalassemia transplants, involving direct supervision with a focus on 100 per cent BMT for this condition.
 
There are about 8,000-10,000 Indian children with thalassemia born every year. The only option besides BMT for these children with thalassemia is repeated blood transfusions and chelation therapy, which is both expensive and distressing to the patients and their parents. BMT offers the only hope for a cure. The cure rates in class I thalassemia are 90-95 per cent and about 70-80 per cent in class III thalassemic children,” said Dr Devi Shetty.
 
The BMT unit at MSCC has been catering to both national and international patients. Patients are referred from Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Nepal and the Middle-East.  The approximate cost per transplant averages around US$  20,000-25,000 which is extremely reasonable compared to costs in the US and Europe, said Dr Anthony R Tersigni.
 
Narayana Hrudayalaya’s Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Centre has taken the initiative in establishing this facility in Karnataka and has completed the largest number of transplants in the state. A large number of patients with thalassemia, aplastic anaemia, leukaemia among other related conditions  have been able to avail of this facility.
 
 In addition to HLA identical sibling transplants, the BMT unit at MSCC has also taken the initiative in starting cord blood transplants and matched unrelated donor transplants. The first unrelated transplant in the state has been conducted for a lady with acute lymphatic leukaemia. The unit has also initiated the cord blood transplant programme for disease like leukaemia in children and for immunodeficiency syndromes.
 
Further, MSCC  has a cord blood facility to collect cord blood units for public banking and usage for cord blood transplants. The BMT Unit is one of the few transplant centres with facility for total body irradiation (TBI) which is used during conditioning for lymphoid malignancies as well as in the reduced intensity conditioning transplants.
 
 The faculty at MSCC’s Bengaluru unit consists of a haematologist, two medical oncologists and one paediatric oncologist. This combined experience makes it a major referral centre for stem cell transplants.