First peripheral blood stem cell transplant done i

Government doctors may have possibly found a better and less invasive cure for leukemia patients.

This, as the first peripheral blood stem cell transplant in the country was declared successful more than two months after the operation was performed by doctors of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI).

Dr. Honarata Giongco-Baylon, head of the transplant team, said 50-year-old leukemia patient Raquel Opena is now on her way to full recovery with no signs of the potentially fatal disease.

After being diagnosed to be afflicted with acute leukemia sometime in 1999, Opena was given by one doctor six months to live. But determination to see her three children finish school prompted her to seek medical treatment from the NKTI.

Upon the advice of NKTI doctors, Opena underwent a series of monthly chemotherapy to combat her leukemia cells. Subsequent workups, however, revealed that her condition was getting more serious.

Due to high probability of rapid disease progression, Opena decided to undergo stem cell transplantation, a kind of operation yet to be performed in the country.

Last June 29, Opena underwent the so-called "non-myeloablative conditioning regimen" using some 72 cc of blood stem cells donated by her older sister, Violeta.

Baylon said the stem cells, the mother of all blood cells, and platelets were obtained not from the bone marrow but from the peripheral blood. NKTI performed three other transplants in the past, all utilizing the bone marrow as source of stem cells.

For the special operation, Violeta underwent five days of subcutaneous injection of growth factor to mobilize the stem cells from her bone marrow to the peripheral blood.

Collection of peripheral blood stem cells was done through the use of a cell separator machine. The harvested stem cells were infused to Raquel utilizing a catheter inserted through the skin into a large vein in the chest.

After the transplant, Raquel stayed in the hospital for one month for close monitoring. She was kept under strict sterile condition since she was then very susceptible to infection.

On the 30th day after the transplant, 100-percent donor cells were confirmed to have no signs of leukemia.

Raquel is set to be presented this week as the first beneficiary of peripheral blood stem transplant in the country.