Patients suffering from blood-related cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma and other genetic disorders can now look forward to the National Stem Cell Donor Registry to be launched soon by the Centre to help them survive through Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT).
The registry will be a databank of diverse voluntary donors who have pledged to donate their live bone marrow or stem cells from umbilical cord blood.
“The larger is the registry the greater is the possibility of finding an HlA match (HlA type is when the donor’s and patient’s white blood cell type have an exact match).
“There are about 2.5 lakh patients afflicted with blood disorders (thalassaemia) and some genetic disorders (Hurler Syndrome) as well in India waiting for the stem cell transplantation. Presently, just 30 per cent of patients’ need is being met through siblings whose HlA type is a perfect match,” explained Vinita Srivastava, National Consultant, Blood Cell in the Health Ministry.
The rest 70 per cent find it difficult to get a stem cell donor with an HlA match. There is a huge gap between requirement and availability due to lack of a large data base of well characterised blood stem cell donors in the country.
The proposed national registry with donors belonging to diverse ethnic backgrounds will give an Indian patient a chance to find a possible match within his/her race/ethnicity, (i.e.) with people sharing the same cultural linguistic, biological traits etc, Srivastava added.
“We will launch a website of the stem cell donor registry on November 15. Anyone in need or pledging to donate their stem cell can log in the portal and we will help them to do the needful in the matter,” she said.
Additional Health Secretary CK Mishra called it a significant step saying that the national registry will be a huge medical assistance to the patients in the sector.
According to the ICMR, an estimated 1,04,239 blood and lymphatic malignancies were diagnoised in 2010 in India and it is expected to increase to 1,32,574 cases per year by 2020.
Against the current requirement of blood stem cell transplantation of 2.50 lakhs, the number of transplants conducted in the last 20 years is just 2445(As against 4200 BMTs in 2010 alone in USA)
There are over 50 donor registries and more than 18.5 million registered donors across the globe. But as there are very few Indians, it reduces the chances of finding a possible match for a patient of Indian origin.