Cancer Institute introduces new treatment for leukaemia

Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) has introduced a new treatment in the country for blood cancer known as leukaemia.

Dr Henry Ddungu, the consultant, Hematology at UCI, said the new apheresis and cellular therapies treatment is done by removing the sick blood cells and replacing them with healthy ones.

He noted that having procured the machines that separate various blood components and trained health experts to operate them, the institute this month rolled out the treatment that is offered free of charge.

The Trima Accel Automated blood collection system and Spectra optia apheresis system machines were procured last year from the United States of America at a cost of Shs1.9b.

Dr Ddungu explained that this kind of treatment also helps in removing excessive cells from the body.

 “People come in with so many cells and we can’t start them on treatment because of the cellular burden. A normal person can have a total count cell of up to 11,000 but if someone comes in with one million cells, it makes their blood not to flow properly, the patient can get a stroke and lose sight permanently, so we have a modality now that we can use to reduce on the amount of cells in preparation for proper treatment of this patient,” Dr Ddungu said.

Addressing journalists at the media centre in Kampala yesterday, he explained that the same treatment will help people with sickle cell anaemia and other related blood diseases.

 He explained that the treatment is also used in removing stem cells that are used to make other cells in a bone marrow transplant that is expected to begin by the end of the year.

“UCI is at the final end of starting full implementation of bone marrow transplant, where conditions around blood can be treated using this kind of treatment. Sometimes the normal treatment may not be helpful, hence the need to supplement it by removing sick cells and replacing them with new health cells,” Dr Ddungu said.

He explained bone marrow transplant as a process that involves removing the sick cells from a person and replacing them with health stem cells from a donor.

He noted that this will help significantly on the number of people travelling abroad for blood related disease treatment.

In Uganda, more than 20 people travel abroad annually seeking treatment for leukaemia and sickle cell anaemia.

Dr Ddungu explained that sickle cell anaemia as a genetic disorder that is inherited from both parents and advised people to always go for genetic counselling so that people with sickle cell don’t get married to each other.

Ms Ritah Bafumba, the head nurse in the Haematology Ward at UCI, said the machines will help in getting a lot of platelets from one person.

“When blood starts flowing from the donor, the machine separates different blood components. It separates components according to how heavy they are and the most heavy component will remain down and the lighter one such as plasma and platelets will be on top and we only take off what we want,” Ms Bafumba said.