Bone Marrow Transplant Centre in Bangalore soon

A Bone Marrow Transplant Centre to be set up in Bangalore soon is expected to perform the transplantation at one tenth of the cost in the rest of the world.

The Bone Marrow Transplant Centre will come up at Manipal Hospital in Bangalore, which already has ten such transplants to its credit during the last two years. Manipal Education and Medical Group recently entered into a partnership with University of Minnesota Physicians, USA, for setting up the Bone Marrow Transplant Centre.

Announcing the tie-up, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Manipal Health Systems R Basil said an autologus transplant, involving the patient’s own bone marrow, will cost Rs 500,000 to Rs 700,000 while an allogenic transplant, involving another person’s bone marrow, will cost around Rs 1 to Rs 1.2 million. “This is still the one tenth of the cost for a bone marrow transplant in the rest of the world”, Basil claimed.

He said Manipal Hospital had chosen the University of Minnesota Physicians, USA, for the alliance on account of the latter’s expertise in the field. “The first ever successful human bone marrow transplant was performed at University of Minnesota Physicians in 1968 and they have considerable expertise in the area”, Basil said.

Around 300 Bone Marrow Transplants are performed at University of Minnesota Physicians in the USA every year, which is the highest in the world for any centre in the US. For the University of Minnesota Physicians, which is world leader in cord blood transplants, this is the first partnership in India.

Manipal Hospital, which has already put in place University of Minnesota Physicians protocols in place, plans to invest about Rs 30 million in the first phase for rooms, laboratory and other facilities. Though the Bone Marrow Centre at Manipal has only two rooms, the administration now proposes to have at least 50 rooms in the next five years.

Manipal Education and Medical Group’s (MEMG) Chief Executive Officer Dr Ranjan Pai said India accounts for barely 400 Bone Marrow Transplants out of the 40,000 that are performed all over the world every year. Bone Marrow Transplants are still in its infancy in India.
There are a total of 15 Bone Marrow Transplant Centres in India including the one at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.