“Madurai first in south to have bone marrow transplantation facility”

September 21, 2014 09:56 am | Updated 09:56 am IST - MADURAI:

Madurai was the first among the southern districts to have the facility for bone marrow transplantation, said doctors of the Meenakshi Mission Hospital and Research Centre (MMHRC) here on Saturday.

The facility, established in the hospital at a cost of Rs 20 crore, had helped the hospital treat five patients successfully in the past four months, said N. Sethuraman, founder of MMHRC, at a press meet. “We will soon establish facilities for liver transplantation,” he added.

Krishna Kumar Ratnam, head of the division of medical oncology at MMHRC, noted that the statistics of the World Health Organisation indicated that cancer cases were on the rise in India.

“Factors such as environmental pollution are reasons for the rise in the number of cancer cases. Bone marrow transplantation helps in curing around 40 per cent of cancer cases.”

According to him, the treatment is life-saving in cases of myeloma and lymphoma.

Hematologist and bone marrow transplant specialist Kasi Viswanathan said that two patients underwent autologous stem cell transplant and three patients underwent allogenic stem cell transplant in the hospital.

According to the doctors, the cost of treatment in Madurai is 40 per cent lesser when compared to the costs in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.

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