What is conditioning/ Chemotherapy and radiation therapy before bone Marrow Transplant and Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplant?
The first step to BMT and PBSCT is destroying the diseased cells from your body through high doses of chemotherapy or radiation called conditioning. At Aster Medcity, we have the most advanced technology for these procedures, including Kerala’s first True Beam Linear Accelerator and dedicated radiotherapy rooms to ensure maximum patient safety. All radiotherapy treatments we provide are based on NCCN (USA) and ESMO (Europe) guidelines.
As cancerous cells divide faster than healthier cells, we can, through conditioning destroy the existing bone marrow cells so that we can infuse healthy, transplanted cells into your body effectively.
What is Donor- Recipient Matching?
Your body is unique and has a set of proteins called human leukocyte-associated (HLA) antigens, on the surface of your body cells. We identify this set of proteins from samples drawn from your blood or buccal swab smears.
We have the expertise and facilities to evaluate bone marrow morphology and immunohistochemistry at our state-of-the-art lab. The other relevant specialised tests include flowcytometry, cytogenetics and molecular genetics.
In most cases, the success of allogeneic transplantation depends on how well the HLA antigens of the donor and recipient’s stem cells. Higher the number of matching HLA antigens, greater are chances of your body accepting the donor’s stem cells.
You are less likely to develop graft-versus-host disease graft-versus-tumour effect post allogeneic transplant: when white blood cells from the donor attack the cells in the patient’s body after the chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy, if the stem cells are closely matched. It is estimated that only 25 to 35 percent of patients have a HLA-matching sibling. The chances of obtaining matching stem cells from an unrelated donor too vary, so finding the right donor is the key to a successful BMT or PBSCT.
