Kathmandu, September 4

Civil Hospital is launching haploidentical stem cell transplant within a few months.

It’s a treatment process for patients with blood-related cancers and certain blood disorders.

Patients who need a stem cell transplant and can’t find a donor who matches their tissue type will benefit from the transplant. Haploidentical transplant is a modified form of stem cell transplant in which a healthy first degree relative — a parent, or sibling can often serve as a donor.

“When no matched donor is available, half-matched related (haploidentical) donors are safely used in stem cell transplantation,” informed Dr Bishesh Poudyal, associate professor and chief of Clinical Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at the hospital.

The cost of the transplant will be around 12 to 15 lakh rupees. People suffering from blood cancer, aplastic anaemia, sickle cell anaemia and thalassemia will benefit from the transplant.

The hospital has been performing allogeneic and autotransplant stem cell transplant where only siblings can be donors.

Nine patients had undergone autotransplant and one had undergone allogeneic stem cell transplant in the hospital after it started bone marrow transplant in the hospital in 2016.