A 12-year-old Iraqi boy, who underwent a rare ‘Half Matched Stem Cell Transplant’ at the Artemis Hospital is recovering well, a senior consultant said here on Wednesday.

According to hospital authorities, the case is considered to be the first successful half matched bone marrow transplant for Fanconi Anaemia in India.

Zaid Ali Khadim was admitted a few months ago for the treatment of Fanconi Anaemia, a sort of inherited bone-marrow failure syndrome in which his body was not producing red cells, white cells and platelets, said doctors in the latest health bulletin issued on Wedneday.

His elder brother was also suffering from similar problem but died of intracranial bleed few years ago.

Khadim was referred to Artemis Hospital for the treatment, but he did not have any matched sibling donor on Human Leukocyte Antigen or any unrelated donor.

The team of doctors attending to the case was headed by Vikas Dua, Consultant, Paediatric Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT).

“Dr. Dua and his team took it as a challenge and decided to conduct a Haplo-identical Stem Cell Transplant (half matched transplant) with 45-year-old father being the donor. The transplant went off well and the patient is recovering well now post six months of the transplant,” senior consultant Nava Baro said.

Fanconi Anaemia is a rare disease – a kind of inherited bone marrow failure syndrome where the body of the patient does not make red blood cells and the patient requires monthly blood transfusion.

In most of the affected patients, a Bone Marrow Transplant is the only way to cure it. Bone Marrow/Stem cell transplantation involves replacing of diseased blood-forming cells with another person’s healthy stem cells.

“Sadly, it may not be always possible to find a complete matched donor. The success of a transplant depends on various reasons like, how close the match is between child and donor and the patient’s age; matched siblings are best,” Baro said.

However, the chance of a complete match is very minimal.

Dua said, “In the case of Zaid, we decided to go ahead with the transplant as his father being the half-matched donor. We are extremely happy and glad that the transplant went off well and Zaid is recovering well at the moment.”

Fanconi Anaemi is a genetically inherited disease with an incidence of 1 per 350,000 births. It happens due to the genetic defect in a cluster of proteins responsible for DNA repair.

As a result of it, most of the Fanconi Anaemia patients develop cancer and about 90 percent of them develop bone marrow failure by the age of 40.