Patna: The Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) has become the first government hospital in Bihar to conduct bone marrow transplant (also known as stem cell transplant) on a patient.

Bijay Kumar Ranjan, 54, from Khagaria, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma (a type of bone marrow cancer) at the outpatient department of IGIMS last year, has become the first patient to undergo a successful bone marrow transplant at IGIMS.

The stem cell transplantation was done on the patient on July 18. The patient underwent stem cell transplant from his own bone marrow. The patient was monitored for the next 10 days and now he has fully recovered.

IGIMS's medical oncologist Dr Avinash Pandey (33), who has earlier served as assistant professor at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, conducted the whole procedure with the help of doctors of the other departments of the hospital, including microbiology, transfusion medicine and the anaesthesia department.

Bijay didn't have to pay a single penny to IGIMS for undergoing the transplant as the whole procedure was done with Rs 5 lakh assistance provided by the state government. The state government provides Rs 5 lakh assistance for bone marrow patients.

"After Binay was admitted at IGIMS, we gave him an estimate of the expenditure on his treatment. After this, he applied for the state government fund. We received Rs 5 lakh from the government within a week of application for the fund and his treatment was started soon after getting the fund. So far, Rs 3.5 lakh has been spent from the government fund on Binay's treatment, the rest would be used for the drugs and further follow-up treatment. After stem cell transplant, the patient is put on a high dose of antibiotics for six months so that there is no relapse of the disease. Each month, drugs cost around Rs 10,000," said Pandey.

He said the same procedure would have cost around Rs 12 to Rs 14 lakh in a private facility.

"The multiple myeloma patients require high dose of chemotherapy for destroying their cancerous cells but the high dose chemotherapy also damage the bone marrow of the patient due to which stem cell transplant is required because it helps to regenerate healthy stem cells. We conducted lung test, heart test and other such tests on the patient prior to the procedure," he said. "IGIMS director N.R. Biswas, institute dean Dr S.K. Shahi and the dean of the research cell of IGIMS, Dr Prabhat Kumar Sinha, provided me with all the logistic and manpower support due to which we were able to perform this first stem cell transplant at IGIMS," he added.

"Six more patients are lined up to undergo stem cell transplant at IGIMS," said Dr Pandey.