Associate Director
Centre For Bone Marrow Transplant
+91-11-30403040Bone Marrow Transplant Centre at BLK-Max super speciality hospital is one of the largest bone marrow transplant centres in India. We offer specialist services to patients across a wider catchment area. The Centre aims to deliver advanced patient care, supported by a team of expert surgeons, haematologists, doctors and nurses for providing advanced Bone marrow transplant treatment services with excellent patient outcomes.
Autologous means cells acquired from the patient’s body, who is the donor and the receiver simultaneously. An autologous transplant is usually done on the patient using his/her own bone marrow or stem cells.
The autologous stem cell transplant process can be done either by using bone marrow harvesting or peripheral blood stem cells:
The next step is to process the harvested Bone marrow/ stem cells.
Body Location- Generally bone marrow is harvested from hip bone, pelvis and sternum.
Alternate name- Autologous Bone marrow transplant is also known as Autologous Stem cell transplant.
There are various serious and often fatal illnesses that require bone marrow transplant as a cure. Such illnesses include:
Cancerous Illnesses (80% Of Cases) - Autologous Bone Marrow Transplant is done in relapsed/ refractory cancers. Lymphoma, myeloma and other cancers of the blood, like cell lymphoma and AML.
Non-Malignant Illnesses -These illnesses include a condition where the bone marrow stops functioning, consequently to hepatitis or poisoning or with no evident cause. This category also involves conditions where the creation of a certain type of red blood cell is disrupted, such as thalassaemia or drepanocytosis. It also includes severe infant immunodeficiencies or hereditary diseases.
Since it’s a crucial treatment process, a patient has to undergo various processes before the autologous bone marrow transplant to ensure high safety and better outcomes.
Step 1: Pre-Transplant Process: A doctor might prescribe Pre-transplant tests and procedures, where a series of tests and procedures are performed to ensure the patient’s general health and the status of the medical condition. This process of evaluation may take several days.
Step 2: Conditioning Process: After completing the medical evaluation, a patient has to undergo the conditioning process. In this process, either chemotherapy or radiation therapy or a combination of both is given to the patient to:
• Destroy any type of cancer cells in case of malignancy
• Preparing the patient's bone marrow for the growth of new stem cells.
Step 3: Autologous Bone Marrow Transplant: A patient now has to go through cytotoxic treatment, which involves the transplantation of the harvested and processed cells back into the patient's body through a central venous catheter. These cells then travel through the bloodstream into the places inside the bones, where they tend to create new bone marrow.
Step 4: Engraftment: In this process, the patient is under close monitoring for the sign of the growth of new stem cells along with supportive care.
Follow up
After the autologous bone transplant process, the patient will stay in the hospital or visit the hospital. At every follow-up, patients are monitored for side effects, weakness and other symptomatic treatment. Blood counts may fluctuate in the initial 3-4 weeks after autologous BMT.
Some of the precautions a patient must follow before and after the transplantation process include:
Before The Transplantation:
After The Transplantation:
Generally, a patient receives high doses of chemotherapy or radiation therapy before a transplant, which comes with complications such as:
Other complications due to transplant include:
The success rate of autologous bone marrow transplant is very high as it is the safest transplantation with very less complications involved.
Dr. Pawan Kumar Singh
Centre For Bone Marrow Transplant
Dr. Megha Verma
Centre For Bone Marrow Transplant