The state-of-the-art bone marrow transplant (BMT) unit at Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center at Narayana Health City has successfully treated 1,000 patients, the largest in Karnataka and one of the largest in the country.

The 1,000th BMT patient is a 10-year-old boy from Kolar, 65 km from the hospital. The boy was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia. He found a matching donor after persistent search by Narayana Health team at the Germany registry and his treatment was funded by ESI and partly by crowdsourcing.

According to Marrow Donor Registry India, at any time, all over the world, there are about 3,000 patients searching for a donor for a Stem Cell transplant and less than 30 percent of those find a suitable donor within their family. Remaining 70 percent depend on unrelated donors which indicates that very few people receive best possible treatment. Narayana Health has 30 beds across Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai with a capacity to conduct 150 BMT’s per year.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Biocon Limited Chairman and Managing Director D. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said, "I am proud to be part of this journey to build one of India’s largest Bone Marrow Transplant Centre. This centre has become a case study for many and we hope to play a crucial role in eradicating blood related diseases in the near future by offering world-class treatment”.

Narayana Health Chairman and Executive Director Dr. Devi Shetty said, "In India, there are over one lakh patients with serious blood-related disorders diagnosed every year and the only long-lasting line of treatment for them is Bone Marrow Transplant. We started this unit in 2004 with a vision to offer world-class treatment and today I am proud that our Bangalore unit alone has successfully treated 1000 BMT cases ."

He said that BMT procedure helps in the treatment of various non-cancerous diseases like Aplastic Anaemia, Immunodeficiency disorders, congenital storage disorders, congenital errors of metabolism and Haemoglobinopathies such as Thalassemia and Sickle Cell Anaemia.

Dr. Sharat Damodar, Clinical Director – Mazumdar Shaw Medical Center and Sr. Consultant Hematologist & Head – Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Narayana Health City said, "There is a huge demand-supply gap for Bone Marrow Transplant in our country. Currently, we have close to 2 lakh registered donors and to address the current demand deficit we need at least 10 Lakh donors to register.”

He said that the vision is to treat 300 patients per year from the present 150 patients per year and to increase the bed capacity to 25 from 18 at present in the next two years. "We also plan to start Cellular Immunotherapy, a process that harnesses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer by 2020 to further strengthen our treatment facility. From the first treatment of a 4-year-old thalassemia child way back in 2004 to the 1000th treatment of aplastic anaemia 10-year-old boy from Kolar, Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre has emerged as a centre of excellence for BMT in the country."

India treats approximately 1,500 BMT cases every year which is far less as compared to other countries like China, Japan, Korea who are treating approximately 8,000 cases every year. Dr Sunil Bhat, Head – Paediatric Oncology, Haematology, and Bone Marrow Transplant at Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre, Narayana Health City said "The number of haematological disorders is on a rise in the country and every year at least 80,000 to 1 lakh kids are born with serious blood-related disorders.

Out of the overall blood-related disorders diagnosed every year almost 5-8 percent cases are from the Karnataka region. Out of the 1,000 BMTs performed at our center, approximately 60 percent are pediatric cases (with babies as young as few weeks old) as there are more indications for the bone marrow transplant in children. These indications range from cancerous conditions like laeukemia to non-cancerous genetic conditions like immunodeficiency and thalassemia.