First Allogeneic BMT Performed Free At SCB Medical College & Hospital In Cuttack

Bhubaneswar: Doctors at SCB Medical College & Hospital, Cuttack, conducted the first-ever allogeneic bone marrow transplant free of cost to give a cancer patient a new lease of life on Saturday.

The hospital’s BMT unit has been extending the costly treatment free of cost to cancer patients. This is the first such effort by a state government hospital in India. The unit at the SCB Hospital had been conducting only autologous BMT.

Dhenkanal’s 21-one-year-old Abhiram Jena had no resources to undergo the costly treatment. Jena was suffering from relapsed B — Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia — a type of blood cancer. Stem cells were donated by his sister.

“The BMT, which would have cost around ₹30 lakh and the waiting period would have been at least one year outside Odisha, was carried out with active support of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his administration,” leader of the doctor’s team, RK Jena was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

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