Health Minister P. K. Sreemathy has said that a bone marrow transplant unit and stem cell therapy unit will be set up for treatment of blood cancers at the Malabar Cancer Centre (MCC), Thalassery, with technical assistance from the Adult Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation unit of Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukie, USA.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, the Minister said that bone marrow transplantation was the most modern treatment for leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. This treatment was already available at the Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. However, there were problems in obtaining suitable bone marrow. Stem cell transplantation, which was a more advanced and effective treatment, would help to solve the problems.
Stem cells could be harvested from cells in the placenta and umbilical cord which are discarded after child birth. The cells could be easily collected, typed and stored at birth, and unlike voluntary donors, are available immediately on demand for transplant. Public Cord Blood Banks could be established for storing the stem cells.
Hari Parameswaran, programme director at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and B. Satheesan, Director of the Malabar Cancer Centre, said the ultimate goal of the project was to develop state of the art stem cell transplant care and a cord blood bank for patients who do not have family donors.
Cord blood stem cell units collected from babies would be stored at the blood bank for use when needed. If sufficient numbers are collected, there would come a situation where almost everyone who needs a stem cell transplant would have a donor or cord blood stem cells available.
In the next few years, procedures that could adapt stem cells for treatment of heart attacks, strokes and diabetes were likely to emerge.
Ms. Sreemathy said she had discussed revival of activities of the Indian Institute of Diabetes here with the Mayo Clinic of USA and the World-India Diabetes Foundation during her recent visit to the USA. An understanding had been reached for exchange of faculties and organisation of a continuing education programme at the Institute in February next year.
Meenu Hariharan, director of the institute, Paul Sebastian, director of the Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, and Usha Titus, Secretary (Medical Education and Social Welfare), attended the press conference.
