Stem cell replacement gives new life to woman suffering from rare neuro-disorder

New Delhi: A woman got a new lease of life after a stem cell replacement surgery. The patient, Susma Behri, had been suffering from Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP) which is a rare neurological disorder and has after-effect even after the proper course of the medicines.

According to experts, CIDP is a case of acute autoimmune neurological disorder which affects movement and brain activity related to locomotory movements.

"Autoimmunity disorder affects young people harshly as they slowly and gradually get paralysed due to the disease. Medicines to treat this disorder are extremely expensive and has harsh effects on the body. Strong steroids and IVIG injections are often unaffordable for patients who come to us seeking treatment," said Dr Praveen Gupta, a neurologist in a private hospital, Gurugram.

"Sushma was taking these medicines after being diagnosed with CIDP and was bravely facing the consequences on her body. However, the long-term impact was not in sight. Even after spending lakhs of rupees in a year, she wasn't getting any better," Dr Gupta added.

He added that we recommended her to undergo autologous stem cell replacement surgery, even though it was not done in India before. Precedents were set in developed countries and success was achieved, which was our motivation. In this procedure, the defective cells are removed from bone marrow using chemotherapy, and then new bone marrow is created from the healthy cells replacing the defective bone marrow.

He added that the challenge was that alternative procedure that is bone marrow transplant was never heard of or carried out successfully in India before. However, blood transfusion or IVIG comes at a very high cost, coupled with steroids and medicines having heavy side effects on the well being of an individual can get extremely stressful for the patient and their family.

"This is a tremendous success for the entire medical fraternity in India and builds hope for thousands of patients," the expert added.