India needs database of blood stem cell donors: Doctor

With only one in two million Indians finding a genetically matched donor, the country needs a database of willing blood stem cell donors to help the cause, a senior haematologist said.
"Surprisingly it's not difficult to get blood donors in our country, but we do not have enough donors for blood stem cells," haematologist and director of Tata Medical Centre in Kolkata Dr Mammen Chandy said.
"A large number of Indian patients with blood cancer and bone marrow failure who have failed standard treatments, can be cured with a haematopoietic stem cell transplant if only they had matched donors. For other patients, if a donor is found to be genetically matched from the registry, a transplant can be done and it can be life-saving.

"So, India needs to increase the number of donors on our registries," Dr Chandy said.
Blood stem cells, derived from peripheral blood of the donor, have the capacity to replace the recipient's abnormal stem cells with healthy ones correcting the problem at the root-level.
A blood stem cell transplant can be done to treat many fatal blood disorders such as Leukaemia, Thalassemia and Aplastic Anaemia.
With Kerala having over 19,000 donors followed by Tamil Nadu (over 16,000) and Karnataka (over 10,000), West Bengal has 2,369 blood stem cell donors, which is a small number compared to its population, the haematologist said.

"We need to create awareness on blood stem cell donation... We need to make people understand about the concept and break the myths related to the issue," Dr Chandy said.