Rare surgery gives 7-yr-old boy fresh lease of life

Successful bone marrow transplant on Thalassemia patient

American Oncology Institute, on Wednesday shared the success story of an Allogeneic Bone Marrow Transplant surgery on Pardhu Thejavath, a seven-year-old high-risk Thalassemia patient. Dr Srinivas Bacchu, Consultant Hemato-Oncologist and Bone Marrow Transplant specialist, performed this rare and complex procedure on the child, aimed at curing the chronic disorder and let the child live a normal life without the hassle of regular blood transfusions and other obvious threats of illness. Dr M Babaiah, Medical Director at American Oncology Institute congratulated the team on its success.

Explaining the surgery, Dr Srinivas Bacchu said, “The procedure needed expert attention and posed a major challenge for us as the child had developed multiple medical disorders. We are glad we could overcome these challenges and that the procedure was a great success. He is presently living a normal life and will soon be able to restart his education and other activities.”

He continued, “Around 12000 Thalassemic children are born in India every year. The cost of transfusion and Iron Chelation is anywhere between 90,000 and Rs.1,00,000 for a four-year-old, in a private set up. These numbers could be brought down massively with preventive measures like genetic counseling.

A simple Haemoglobin Electophoresis blood test for carrier detection can avoid extreme outcomes. But if a child is affected with Thalassemia, sooner the transplantation is better for overall health development.”

Pardhu Thejavath was referred to American Oncology institute in July 2014 for consideration of Allogeneic transplantation. He was a patient of class 3 (high risk) for transplant and his ferritin (measure of iron in the body) was very high (3,000). The team of doctors led by Dr S Bacchu did the due diligence to understand the feasibility for his surgery given his medical condition as he was found to be iron overloaded at that time. “His abdomen was big as his spleen and liver were enlarged.

He was at risk of having a short stature, heart failure, may not attain puberty, and having underactive thyroid and diabetes if the transfusion and iron removal was not optimised. He was also at risk of contacting other Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) from future red cell transfusion and risk of liver and heart failure.

All these would have increased his treatment costs in the future, affect quality of his life and his family members and can cast a strain on the family’s finances,” the doctor informed.“His procedure was done on August 25, 2015, and post surgery he was kept in a special filtered room for two months to closely observe and avoid infections.

He is now five months post procedure, transfusion independent, and his liver and spleen which were enlarged have decreased in size. He may likely go back to school from next year once fully immunised again,” he concluded.