The Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Unit at the National Center for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR), a member of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), successfully performed 42 allogeneic and 105 autologous blood stem cell transplants despite the pressure placed on the country’s healthcare system due to COVID-19. 

According to Dr Javid Gaziev, Head of Bone Marrow Transplant Program at NCCCR, BMT is a highly effective therapy and often the only hope for a cure or a longer life for patients with blood cancers. BMT is a procedure to replace disordered bone marrow with healthy bone marrow stem cells. Transplant physicians use the procedure to eliminate cancer or defective stem cells and restore a patient’s blood and immune systems.

Explaining the progress of the allogeneic transplants, Dr Gaziev said the allogeneic stem cell transplantation is a highly specialised treatment and one of the significant advances in care at NCCCR, as mandated by the National Cancer Strategy.

He said that the interdisciplinary expert teams of transplant physicians, transplant nurses, transfusion medicine, laboratory medicine, and stem cell processing laboratory have invested years of developmental work to finally establish the cutting-edge Blood and Marrow Stem Cell Transplant Program. These advanced therapies required many years of specialised transplant expertise.

A total of 147 transplants with excellent outcomes is an outstanding achievement since the introduction of the Qatar Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Program, which stands out among the best stem cell transplant centres worldwide. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic in the last two years, the unit succeeded in performing 25 allogeneic and 50 autologous urgent transplantations.

Stem cell transplant therapy

Stem cell transplant therapy is a life-saving treatment for many cancer patients, especially those with blood cancers and some inherited benign blood disorders like Sickle Cell Disease, Thalassemia and others.

This advanced therapy was unavailable in Qatar until 2015, when they introduced autologous stem cell transplantation, followed by the allogeneic blood and marrow transplant programme in 2017. Bone Marrow Transplant services at the NCCCR meet the best international standards in terms of patient safety and the transplants technology used by oncologists and the BMT specialists.

NCCCR Medical Director Dr Mohamed Salem Al Hassan said that HMC is committed to enhancing the BMT techniques and to providing innovative services and technologies to improve transplants capacity and capabilities for all cancer patients, as well as providing the best and most advanced BMT services available to Qatar’s population.

HMC continues its development journey with many remarkable achievements and milestones reached over the last three years. These achievements include the expansion of the Day Care Unit, the significant transformation made at the Outpatient Department to treat more cancer patients to meet the increased number of Qatar’s population in general and the cancer patients in particular.

This is in addition to the Nuclear Treatment of tumors following the opening of the first Radiopharmaceutical Laboratory to provide cancer patients with diagnostic and therapeutic care locally, saving patients the need to travel abroad for this type of care.

High-quality cancer services

Simultaneously, there have been substantial changes in how cancer is identified, diagnosed and treated in the country. With access to high-quality cancer services and the provision of dedicated, specialised care, the cancer treatment landscape continues to improve with more cases being diagnosed earlier, and survival rates continue to improve.

Despite the COVID-19 crisis, HMC continues to improve their services to deliver high-quality care to patients. In line with HMC’s mission, the ultimate goal is to develop a healthy population, and people are part of the equation in making that happen.

We have achieved so much through our employees’ dedication, determination and hard work, and there is still more to complete, says Dr Al Hassan.

HMC is committed to enhancing medical performance, introducing the best treatment programmes, using the latest equipment and technologies, and providing staff with the required training on the use of new technologies to ensure the delivery of high-quality care to patients.


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