4-yr-old girl treated successfully for cancer

Vijayawada: A four-year-old girl, Estaru Rani underwent autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation successfully at Manipal Hospitals. The transplantation was done under the supervision of Krishna Reddy, consultant medical oncologist and bone marrow transplant physician and Madhav, consultant medical oncology, Manipal Hospitals.

Addressing the media here on Friday, Dr Reddy said the child was diagnosed with neuroblastoma stage IV, one of the common cancers seen during childhood and known to originate from the nerve cells. He said the child was referred back from NIMS under exceptional circumstances, after completing chemotherapy.

He said they accepted the challenge and took the responsibility of ensuring the child received nothing but the best. They first performed a difficult surgery and excised the posterior mediastinal ganglioneuroblastoma and later autologous stem cell transplant, a procedure which uses the patient’s own blood stem cells to replace the diseased marrow.

Hospital unit head Dr Sudhakar Kantipudi said stem cell transplant programme was performed successfully in 2009 and have been doing autologous stem cell transplants until now. He said they were the only center in Andhra Pradesh with a dedicated six-bedded bone marrow transplant unit.