Patna: Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) will start bone marrow transplants in the next three months.

"The hospital has started the process of purchasing machines. A tender has been floated for one of the important machines - apheresis - which separates stem cells from the blood components," said hospital medical superintendent Prabhat Kumar Sinha during a continuing medical education programme organised by the pathology and medical oncology department of IGIMS.

He said the other infrastructure requirements were also looked into.

Bone marrow transplant can treat leukaemia (blood and bone marrow cancer) and lymphoma (cancer of white blood cells).

Doctor Sumeet Gujral of Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, spoke on targeted therapy for leukaemia and lymphoma patients.

"Targeted therapy, which can be done through antibody and antigen testing, can increase life expectancy of patients by 5 to 10 percent. Which particular medicine would suit the cancer patient can be revealed through targeted therapy," said Gujral.

Renjini Nambiar, a cytogeneticist from Delhi-based Oncquest Lab, spoke on targeted therapy based on the mutation variation in genes.

"The Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization (FISH) test can reveal mutation variation. However, it is a little costly. One can get the test done at Rs 20,000, which is mainly helpful in the detection of leukaemia," said Nambiar.

Senior consultant of haematopathology and surgical pathology of Oncquest, Delhi, Tejinder Singh, spoke on the symptoms in the preliminary stage of bone marrow cancer.

"Fever, small spot of discoloration on skin, bleeding are some of the initial symptoms. When the disease gets into advanced stage (when the cancer cells grow in the bone marrow), one experiences pain in the bones as well," said Singh.