The Command Hospital of the Udhampur-based Northern Command of the Army has become the first institute of the state to successfully perform a bone marrow transplant on cancer patients.
As per Sub Major KS Rathi, officiating PRO of the Northern Command, the operation was performed on October 29 this year on a 50-year-old serving soldier, who was suffering from multiple myeloma, a cancer of white blood cells.
Bone marrow transplantation consists of destroying the diseased bone marrow with chemotherapy and replacing it with normally functioning marrow cells.
It is a highly specialised procedure, performed in a handful of transplant centres in the country, which has now been made available in the state.
A Bone Marrow Transplant unit requires facilities for barrier nursing, storage and irradiation of various blood components, besides specially trained staff. Despite the lack of infrastructure, the team consisting of doctors and paramedical staff from various specialities was able to plan and execute this procedure successfully.
Lt-Col Tarun Verma, a clinical haematologist, performed the transplant procedure in collaboration with the Regional Cancer Centre and the Transfusion Medicine Department of the Government Medical College, Jammu.
The procedure was overseen by cardiologist Col Prashant Bharadwaj, head of the Medicine Department, while Commandant Major Gen Harinder Singh ensured that all necessary drugs and equipment were procured on priority to perform this life-saving procedure, the spokesman said.
The patient was now convalescing in the Command Hospital. More transplants, both autologous and allogenic, were planned in future, he added. The Command Hospital (Northern Command), Udhampur, is also the only tertiary care centre in the Northern Command primarily treating surgical and medical cases evacuated from front line areas.
As per Sub Major KS Rathi, officiating PRO of the Northern Command, the operation was performed on October 29 this year on a 50-year-old serving soldier, who was suffering from multiple myeloma, a cancer of white blood cells.
Bone marrow transplantation consists of destroying the diseased bone marrow with chemotherapy and replacing it with normally functioning marrow cells.
It is a highly specialised procedure, performed in a handful of transplant centres in the country, which has now been made available in the state.
A Bone Marrow Transplant unit requires facilities for barrier nursing, storage and irradiation of various blood components, besides specially trained staff. Despite the lack of infrastructure, the team consisting of doctors and paramedical staff from various specialities was able to plan and execute this procedure successfully.
Lt-Col Tarun Verma, a clinical haematologist, performed the transplant procedure in collaboration with the Regional Cancer Centre and the Transfusion Medicine Department of the Government Medical College, Jammu.
The procedure was overseen by cardiologist Col Prashant Bharadwaj, head of the Medicine Department, while Commandant Major Gen Harinder Singh ensured that all necessary drugs and equipment were procured on priority to perform this life-saving procedure, the spokesman said.
The patient was now convalescing in the Command Hospital. More transplants, both autologous and allogenic, were planned in future, he added. The Command Hospital (Northern Command), Udhampur, is also the only tertiary care centre in the Northern Command primarily treating surgical and medical cases evacuated from front line areas.
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