Cuttack: The SCB Medical College and Hospital on Tuesday successfully conducted Odisha’s first halo allogenic bone marrow transplant (BMT) procedure at its clinical haematology department.
The surgery was performed on Subhrashu Sahu (29) from Kantabani village under Khordha’s Baghamari police limits. The donor was his 15-year-old younger brother.
Subhrashu was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2016. Though he recovered in 2019, the disease relapsed later. The doctors this time decided to transplant his bone marrow with a suitable donor.
While conventional allogenic BMT entails a nearly 100 per cent donor match with siblings being the primary donor, finding a donor in time is very difficult. However, recent advances have made haplo BMT a promising alternative as it enables transplant from half-matched donors. In this procedure, parents, children and other close relatives like uncles, cousins and aunts can become donors.
