Ancillary
Services
| Bone
Marrow Transplant Program |
In
December 2002, a team of doctors from Asian Hospital and Medical
Center performed the country’s first bone marrow transplant
(BMT). Since then, twenty-eight (28) patients, ages 8 months
to 37 years and suffering from life-threatening leukemias
and blood disorders, have successfully undergone BMT at our
hospital.
Asian
Hospital and Medical Center has performed the most number
of BMT procedures in the Philippines.
BMT is a hematological medical procedure that involves stem
cell transplantation. The stem cells are transfused into a
patient after his or her own unhealthy bone marrow has been
eliminated. Bone marrow is the tissue in which most blood
cells (red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets)
are made by the body. Transplantation may be autologous (the
patient's own marrow saved earlier), allogeneic (marrow from
someone else), or syngeneic (marrow from an identical twin).
Prior
to the transfusion, the patient receives high-dose chemotherapy
to eradicate his/her defective or cancerous cells. Then, the
stem cells are infused—much like a blood transfusion—and
find their way to the bone marrow, where they “anchor
and divide”, a process doctors call homing. It takes
two weeks for the donor stem cells “to take” (engraft).
The patient is required to stay in the hospital for six weeks.
BMT
can cure both cancerous and non-cancerous blood disorders.
Topnotch
BMT Team
Asian Hospital and Medical Center has a topnotch BMT Team
composed of the country’s most respected experts in
bone marrow transplantation:
•
Dr. Francisco Vicente F. Lopez
Hematology and Medical Oncology
Bone Marrow Transplantation
•
Dr. Allan Robert R. Racho
Pediatric Hematologist-Oncologist
•
Dr. Salvador Abad Santos
Infectious Disease
For inquiries, please contact the BMT Team at (63 2) 771-9213
or visit us at the Medical Office Building (MOB) Suite 312.
