Among the various studies that the Faculty of Medicine of the UANL has done on the subject, Dr. Olga Graciela Cantú Rodríguez, spoke about the costs of bone marrow transplants and how they have focused to lower these, being the latter, a fundamental and high impact for the Mexican population in the last decade.
The high costs of stem cell transplants, throughout the first decade of 2000 in Mexico, represented a problem for patients who required this type of intervention in the country.
Looking to solve this problem, researchers from the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon (UANL), analyzed how to lower the costs of treatments.
To deepen the topic, Dr. Olga Graciela Cantú Rodríguez, a researcher at the Hematology Department of the UANL School of Medicine, spoke about it.
DISEASES THAT REQUIRE TRANSPLANTATION
“Stem cell transplantation is a procedure that is frequently used in hematological conditions (blood problems) that may be malignant (cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma), or may not be (aplastic anemia, hemolytic anemia)”.
“These diseases cause the death of the stem cells and in the absence of cells that produce blood, the patient, who has a deficit of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, consequently, will have problems of low defenses and coagulation.”
“Several of these diseases occur from birth, with different degrees of severity; Depending on this severity, there will be the need to do something as drastic as a transplant, or some other support treatment, “Cantú Rodríguez clarified.
STEM CELL
“Stem cells are those cells that are capable of producing blood and some other tissues,” explained the researcher. “Bone marrow transplantation involves destroying the stem cells that are inside the bone marrow of a patient, to exchange it for a new bone marrow, either from the same patient (autologous transplant) or from another person (allogeneic transplant)”.
This is done by extracting the donor stem cells from different sources, such as the bone marrow, which is found in the hip bones in adults, or from the peripheral blood after receiving medication to mobilize them to this site from within the bone marrow of the bone.
As a technique, the bone marrow transplant is very similar to a blood transfusion, however, as a treatment, it is a very complex event, as complex as the transplants of solid organs, according to the comments of Cantú Rodríguez.
“Stem cells are loose cells that are in dilution and look like blood; that is why a bone marrow transplant is more like a transfusion than a surgical event.
“One takes the stem cells by different routes, through the veins or by infusing it directly into the bone space. Subsequently, these cells are purified and infused to the recipient of the transplant through a catheter,” she explained.
Stem cells have the ability to find their place in the recipient’s body, alone they are located in the place that corresponds to them. There is no need for doctors to direct them since there are substances and factors in the body that call them to occupy their space, and to grow.
COSTS OF STEM CELL TRANSPLANTS
Among the various studies that the Faculty of Medicine of the UANL has done on the subject, Dr. Olga Graciela Cantú Rodríguez, spoke about the costs of bone marrow transplants and how they have focused to lower these, being the latter, a fundamental and high impact for the Mexican population in the last decade.
“Transplants are very expensive events and they are worldwide. Not expensive due to the technique of the procedure, but for all its environment, for the tests, the highly specialized medicines that are needed and for the highly complex equipment that is required “.
“In some parts of the world, such as in Europe or the United States, doing a transplant can cost between 2 and 5 million Mexican pesos,” said the researcher.
Part of the research of Cantú Rodríguez evaluated which procedures could be modified of the transplant protocols in other sites, to adapt them to the needs of Mexico, without the changes that made the event of the transplant lower quality.
In accordance with the above, the Faculty of Medicine created, since the beginning of the year 2000, a clinic for transplant patients with availability 24 hours a day. This unit lowered the costs a lot because it was not required to hospitalize the patients of the stem cell transplant program, since they could be taken care of any need in the clinic, without having to sleep in the hospital.
In addition, the stem cells obtained from the peripheral blood were used, so it was no longer necessary to use the operating room to obtain the donor’s marrow, nor to recover it in the hospital, after the procedure.
“By having this clinic with 24 hours of availability, 365 days a year and that patients do not have to be hospitalized, it lowers costs; that does not have complications associated with intrahospital management and that does not have to use catheters, it lowers costs, without putting the patient at risk since it is monitored in a clinic of constant attention”, said Cantu Rodríguez.
In November 2007, the UANL, together with the Center of Hematology and Internal Medicine of Puebla, published an article of the Outpatient Transplantation Research project in Mexico, which won them the Carso Prize in Transplants, from the FUNSALUD Biennial Awards (Fundación Mexicana para la Salud), due to the impact, not only scientific, but also social, which represented the making of transplants at a lower cost, and in turn making this activity more accessible to the population in general.
