KZN's Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital makes medical history

The KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Department of Health’s Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital makes history as a 16 year old girl with acute leukemia receives a bone marrow transplant from her 14 year old sister.

On 9 June, Akhona Xaba - a 16 year old patient from Rietvlei with Acute Myeloid Leukemia - received haemopietic stem cells from her 14 year old sister after myeloablation. She was thus the first recipient of allogeneic haemopoietic stem cell transplant performed in KZN.

Fourteen days after myeloablation the patient has successfully engrafted and the patient is clinically well. Although bone marrow transplants have been performed in Cape Town for the last 20 years, it is an important milestone for KZN. Until a few years ago while Cape Town and Johannesburg had modern units, leukaemia patients in KZN were being managed in the veranda of open wards at King Edward Hospital. Dozens of patients died as they could not afford to go to Cape Town for transplants or died while awaiting transplantation.

Journalists are invited for photo opportunities and interaction with the specialist team that managed the patient as she is being discharged from Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital (Clinical Haematology Unit) on Thursday, 30 June 2011, at 11h00.

"We hope this historic first allogeneic transplant will allow us the opportunity to increase awareness about the potential lifesaving treatment of bone marrow transplantation and, more importantly, highlight the need for more Black donors on the South African Bone Marrow Registry," says Dr Jaimendra P. Singh- Head Clinical Unit: Clinical Haematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation.

Enquiries:
Chris Maxon
Cell: 083 447 2869

Notes: Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) is a relatively new medical procedure being used to treat diseases once thought incurable. Since its first successful use in 1968, BMTs have been used to treat patients diagnosed with leukaemia, aplastic anaemia, lymphomas such as Hodgkin's disease, multiple myeloma, immune deficiency disorders and some solid tumours such as breast and ovarian cancer. 

An allergenic bone marrow transplant is a transplant that uses bone marrow from someone else. (An autologous transplant uses the patient’s own bone marrow.) The donor may be a brother or sister, or someone who is completely unrelated.

Allogeneic bone marrow transplants do two things. First, they increase the body’s ability to withstand high doses of chemotherapy, which means more cancer cells can be destroyed. Second, they supply the patient immune cells that can recognise cancer cells and destroy them — this is known as the immune effect. For some diseases, the high doses of chemotherapy are the most important part of treatment whereas with other conditions, it is the immune effect. For most diseases, though, effective treatment depends on careful combination of chemotherapy drugs with the introduction of immune cells.