Umbilical Cord Blood Transplant

Umbilical Cord Blood Transplant Hospital in Delhi

The Umbilical Cord Blood Transplant Unit at BLK-Max Super Speciality Hospital consistently aims at providing quality health assistance in order to improve the lives of patients requiring treatment for blood related disorders.

The comprehensive patient care we offer is at par with international guidelines. We follow a patient-centric treatment plans using cutting-edge technologies, innovative techniques and methodologies.

What Is Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation?

Umbilical cord blood is one of the richest sources of stem cells and extensively utilised for transplantation. In this type of transplant stems cells are reserve from umbilical cord blood. The source of umbilical cord blood is the umbilical cord retrieve after the birth of the baby. This cord blood is processed and freeze for future use in cord blood transplant.

Although cord blood cells have fewer stem cells as compare to other transplants but hold a high tendency of growing more blood cells inside the body than those present in bone marrow. The benefit of using Umbilical cord blood transplant is that the immune cells in cord blood are still "naive", which means they are not yet active in attacking other cells and are less likely to attack the tissues of the transplant recipient and thus they are not necessary to be a close match.

What Are The Indicators For This Transplant?

There are various serious health conditions which require Umbilical cord blood transplant as a cure. Such illnesses include:

Acute lymphocytic/ lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL)
Acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML)
Chronic myelogenous leukaemia (CML)
Juvenile chronic myelogenous leukaemia (JCML)
Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL)
Severe aplastic anaemia
Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS)
Hurler syndrome
Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome
Hodgkin’s lymphoma
Non-hodgkin’s lymphoma
Neuroblastoma
Thalassemia
Adrenoleukodystrophy
Severe combined immune deficiency (SCID)

What Is The Procedure Of The Transplant?

Umbilical cord blood transplantation is a process of replacing old cells line with new cells lining and help in replacing maligned cells or invigorate the system of new cells production.

Step 1: Pre-transplant Process: To ensure high safety and better outcomes your doctor might ask to perform some Pre-transplant tests and procedures. These tests include complete health checkup, to ensure that the patient’s body is ready to undergo the transplant procedure.

Beginning Medical Evaluation
Conference for Treatment Plan
Central Venous Catheter Evaluation And Insertion
Stem Cells Harvest from Umbilical cord blood

Step 2: Conditioning Process: After the completion of these tests, a patient has to undergo the Stem Cell Transplant Conditioning process. This process involves either chemotherapy or radiotherapy or a combination of is used to destroy the diseased cells. The conditioning process helps in:

Lowering the immune system in patient
Helps prevent graft-versus-host disease

Step 3: Umbilical cord blood Transplant: The patient undergoes cytotoxic treatment where the harvested and processed stem cells are transplanted into the patient using a central venous catheter. These stem cells then travel through the bloodstream of the patient into the different places inside the bones. The transplant offers high tendency to a patient to create new blood cells.

Step 4: Engraftment: In this process, the patient is under the close monitoring for the sign of the growth of new stem cells along with supportive care.

Step 5: Post Engraftment monitoring and continuation of immunosuppression

What Are The Precautions One Must Take Before And After The Transplant?

A patient must take care of some of the very important precautions before and after the transplantation process, which includes:

Before the Transplantation:

Inform your doctor about your overall medical history and current medication, if any.
A patient must take a shower twice or thrice in a day to reduce the effect of chemotherapy.
Perform the entire test prescribed by the doctor.
Abstain yourself from the use of alcohol and tobacco.
Prepare yourself for the outcomes and side effects of the transplant both mentally and physically.
Do not eat a heavy meal a day before the transplant.

After the Transplantation:

Maintain proper hygiene at the place you will rest.
Try to follow the advice of the doctor in order to avoid infection, because after transplant your immune system is a week.
Avoid environmental exposure.
Make sure to wash your hands more often in a day.
Get a proper vaccination as prescribed by the doctor.
Try to maintain a healthy weight.
Take a balanced diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables.

Are There Any Risk Complications Involved?

Generally, a patient receives high doses of chemotherapy or radiation therapy before a transplant, which come with complications such as

Nausea
Anaemia
Bleeding
Infections
Skin redness
Mouth and throat sores
Stomach and intestinal irritations.
Liver and lung organ problems

Other complications due to transplant include:

Pain
Chest pain
Chills
Hives
High Fever
Flushing of the face
Nausea and vomiting
Graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD): a condition where donated bone marrow may attack the cells. Thus it is suggested to use the more genetically close donor for transplant.

Studies have proved that there are fewer complications in Umbilical cord blood transplantation as compared to the different type of transplants. However, it is the most useful type of transplant as there is no need to match the cord blood closely to the patient's blood. Thus it serves an option for a patient with uncommon tissue types.