A bone marrow transplant is a complex medical procedure performed to replace bone marrow that has been damaged or destroyed by disease, infection, or chemotherapy. It involves transplanting blood stem cells that travel to the bone marrow where they produce new blood cells and promote the growth of new marrow. Symptoms of bone marrow transplant include nausea, headache, fever, chest pain, drop in blood pressure, or bad mouth taste.
Your doctor will decide if you are the right candidate for a bone marrow transplant after evaluating several factors. These include how likely the transplant is to work, along with your age and overall health. He will check that your kidneys, lungs, liver, and heart are healthy enough for the procedure.
Bone marrow transplant cost in India procedures are often used as a treatment for a wide range of blood diseases and disorders, such as leukemia and lymphoma. These transplants may also be performed to restore stem cells that have been damaged by cancer treatment, specifically high-dose chemotherapy, or radiotherapy.
The transplant process begins after the bone marrow specialist or oncologist recommends the treatment for the patient. The team of doctors evaluates the information about the patient’s specific diagnosis and overall health to determine if a transplant is the best possible option. If a transplant is recommended as a suitable treatment option, the first step is to determine if a donor can be found whose stem cells match the patient’s stem cells.
There are two main types of bone marrow transplant procedures, allogeneic and autologous. If a patient requires an allogeneic transplant, the transplanted cells will come from a donor, so a suitable match must be found. If a patient requires an allogeneic transplant, the cells may be obtained from a sibling, parent, or another close relative, an unrelated donor, or from a stored cord blood unit.
Finding an appropriate match for an allogeneic blood and bone marrow transplant can take several months and unless the donor is identified, the patient will continue with other forms of treatment for the disease. In the case of an autologous transplant, the cells will be extracted from the patient, eliminating the need to find a donor. These cells will be frozen until it is time for the transplant to be performed. Once the doctor gives the green signal for a bone marrow transplant, the patient is required to undergo conditioning to prepare his or her body for the transplant process. During conditioning, the patient is given radiotherapy or chemotherapy to prepare his immune system to accept the transplanted stem cells.
Once the patient’s conditioning process is complete, the bone marrow transplant procedure can be performed. It is a painless operation and the recipient remains awake throughout the procedure. The donor stem cells are infused into the patient’s body through a central line and then travel to the bone marrow where they may begin to produce new blood cells.
If you want to find out the bone marrow transplant cost in India, a detailed internet search will give you the website addresses of renowned hospitals and you can check for the best packages rates for the transplant by visiting these websites.