HCG Cancer Hospital, one of the leading cancer chain hospitals in India, successfully performed an autologous bone marrow transplantation of a two year old pediatric patient from Oman who was suffering from Medulloblastoma, a cancerous brain tumour that starts in the lower part of the brain.
The expert team was led by Dr Intezar Mehdi, director and head of department, Senior Consultant – Pediatric Hematology – Oncology & BMT, and a team of doctors at HCG Cancer Hospital Bengaluru, a press release said.
Saad (name changed) was referred to HCG Cancer Hospital Bengaluru from Oman with a medical history of being diagnosed to have infant medulloblastoma brain tumour in May 2021 and had undergone surgery at a hospital in Oman for the removal of tumour.
He also underwent VP shunt insertion. Post removal of the tumour, the patient was administered chemotherapy according to protocol. It was completed in November 2021. In such cases where patients are young, radiotherapy cannot be given and hence, they are treated with high doses of chemotherapy with autologous BMT. After this, he was referred to HCG Cancer Hospital Bengaluru for autologous bone marrow transplantation due to the case being a complex pediatric case.
At HCG Cancer Hospital, the child underwent a pre-BMT workup and neurological consultation to rule out any syndromic association and to evaluate global developmental delay. EEG was performed which showed normal analysis. MRI brain and spine screening were also performed to look for any residual disease. PET scan and MRI did not show any recurrence of the tumour and so a transplant was suggested.
After the availability of all the reports done at HCG hospital, the patient’s family was counseled for autologous bone marrow transplantation in India. Autologous bone marrow transplantation is a procedure in which a patient’s healthy stem cells (blood-forming cells) are collected from the bone marrow/peripheral blood before treatment, stored, and then given back to the patient.
