Srinagar:
A remarkable international medical collaboration has helped save the life of a three-year-old child in Kashmir suffering from a rare and life-threatening immune disorder, with stem cells donated by a man in Poland and transported through a German donor network before being transplanted at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar.
Three-year-old Lukman was diagnosed with Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a rare condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own organs and healthy blood cells. According to doctors, a bone marrow transplant is the only curative treatment for the disease.
The case carried an added emotional burden for the family. Lukman’s parents had lost their daughter to the same illness two years ago after a suitable donor could not be found.
Soon after Lukman was admitted to SKIMS, doctors began searching global donor registries for a matched unrelated donor because no fully matched sibling donor was available. The search eventually identified a suitable donor through a Germany-based bone marrow donor network. Stem cells were collected from a donor in Poland and transported to Srinagar for the transplant procedure.
For the family, the successful transplant was nothing short of a miracle.
“I just can’t thank enough the doctors of SKIMS who saved my child after this successful stem cell transplant. I lost my daughter to the same disease, and at that time we couldn’t get a donor to save her life,” said Mohammad Ashraf Sheikh, Lukman’s father.
According to SKIMS Director Dr Mohammad Ashraf Ganie, the procedure marks a major milestone for the institute as only a handful of centres in India perform matched unrelated donor (MUD) transplants.
“This is the first such procedure at our institute. We are happy that a young life was saved, and SKIMS is among the very few institutions in the country that can perform a matched unrelated donor transplant,” Dr Ganie said.
The transplant was carried out by a team comprising Dr Reshma Roshan, Associate Professor at SKIMS, Prof. Sajad Ahmad Geelani and Dr Afaq Ahmad Khan.
Doctors said the child recovered well after the procedure and has since been discharged from hospital.
Medical experts explained that stem cell donors are usually siblings with a complete Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) match. When such donors are unavailable, doctors rely on international donor registries to identify genetically compatible matches.
Following the success of the transplant, SKIMS has called for greater awareness about stem cell donation and wider participation in donor registries.
“We can save lives if people register themselves and their HLA profiles are included in donor registries,” Dr Ganie said.
