Kochi: The Haemophilia Treatment Centre (HTC) attached to District Hospital, Aluva, is redefining itself by extending its arm to all patients with rare blood and bleeding disorders apart from hemophilia, by providing treatment to them.
Efforts are also on for twinning with overseas centres of excellence to improve the lot of patients with blood and bleeding disorders. "The centres at Detroit, USA and New Castle upon Tyne (UK) have expressed interest in this regard during our deliberations at World Haemophilia Congress, Orlando, in July 2016 and later," said Dr. Vijayakumar, the medical officer in charge of the centre who attended the Congress.
The all out support given by the only NABH accredited Regional Blood Transfusion Centre at the hospital is the mainstay of the treatment with patients getting free blood transfusions without replacement.
Dr. Vijayakumar recently did his clinical associateship under Prof. Dr. Man chiu Poon for two months at the Department of Haematology, University of Calgary, Canada, and got trained in the management of these rare disorders.
"As the human body has no mechanism to excrete iron, the excess iron that accumulates due to repeated transfusions in thalassemia patients affects vital organs. Complications of chronic iron overload in thalassemia patients include cardiac disease (including heart dysfunction and arrhythmias), pulmonary hypertension, bone disease (including osteoporosis), endocrine diseases (including hypothyroidism and hypogonadism), liver fibrosis and cirrhosis. Chelating agent desferrioxamine binds and helps in the excretion of excess iron. However its cost is prohibitive for average patients," says Dr Vijayakumar.
He said that now the State Government-owned Kerala Medical Service Corporation Ltd (KMSCL) has agreed to provide the costly iron chelating agent to the Thalassemia patients.
"As in the case of Haemophilia, the HTC plans to work in cooperation with the Thalassemia Society to improve the lot of the patients with better infrastructure facilities in the diagnosis and treatment," Dr Vijayakumar added.
