Fight against blood cancer
Shillong, Sept 11: In an encouraging trend of stem cell donation, the key to treatment of blood cancer and related ailment, over 6,000 potential stem cell donors from North East have registered with a non-profit organisation working in this sector.
Among those registered with DKMS-BMST (Bangalore Medical Services Trust), 1,500 are from Assam and 170 from Meghalaya.
This was disclosed by Syantan Dutta of the Bangalore-based trust during a donor registration drive conducted at University of Science and Technology Meghalaya (USTM) in Ri-Bhoi district.
“However, these numbers are not enough as many patients are waiting to find a suitable stem cell donor. To help these patients and many more we urge the young people to come forward and be a part of this drive,” he added.
Sharing his experience, stem cell donor Gautam Kumar from Jharkhand expressed his happiness in being able to give a new life to someone.
Due to lack of awareness mainly in the rural areas of India, people do not come forward to donate stem cells, he said.
Underlining the critical need for more young people to join the donor registry, Dr Minerva Mary of DKMS-BMST said, “Every 5 minutes, someone in India is diagnosed with blood cancer or a blood disorder like Thalassemia or Aplastic Anemia. Many such patients are children and young people whose only chance of recovery is a stem cell transplant.”
To register as a potential stem cell donor, one must be a healthy Indian adult between 18 and 55 years of age.
Stem cell transplantation is often considered a life-saving treatment option for patients suffering from these conditions.
In this life-saving medical procedure, a patient’s diseased or damaged bone marrow cells are replaced with healthy stem cells from a matching donor.
