Leukemia patients demands easy treatment facilities

Friday, 03 February 2012 16:05

KARACHI: High recovery rate of children suffering from Leukemia (blood cancer) demands availability and accessibility of the appropriate treatment facilities.

Senior hematologist Dr. Saqib Ansari, actively involved in treatment of leukemia among children talking to APP Friday said 90% recovery against the ailment among children also demands adequate financial support to help patients meet their medical expenditure.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia also called ALL contributes to the 80 percent of total pediatric blood cancers with an equally high cure rate.

"Both western and local data show promising results among children with more than 80 percent cured from disease and living normal lives," said the hematologist.

In reply to a question, Dr. Ansari said better prognosis of the patients is not only linked to age (1-10 years at the time of diagnosis); female sex and lower WBC counts but also to early diagnosis and treatment.

"In-fact early diagnosis and treatment are key to the better prognosis of these children yet diagnostic and treatment facilities are scarce in our country," he said.

Responding to another query, he said total cost involved in the treatment for these cancers, in Pakistan, is around Rs 500,000 or USD 0.005 million.

"This is nothing as compared to the treatment cost in USA (that is USD 0.2 Million/USD 2 Million)," he said.

"In a nutshell what I want to communicate is that the country if spends an initial amount for establishment of these treatment facilities can save lives of children who only die because of no money to spend on treatment," he said.

The hematologist said Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and Balochistan do not have enough treatment facilities whereas Karachi is the only place in Sindh where around four centres are offering treatment for pediatric blood cancers.

"Out of this only National Institute of Child Health is a government facility providing treatment to children suffering from cancer, that too with the assistance of an NGO," said Dr. Ansari

As for Punjab, he said, these centres are functional in Lahore only while there is one in the capital city Islamabad.

To another query, he said although country has only few centres that are offering diagnostic and management facilities for pediatric blood cancers yet most of these are providing comprehensive facilities up to the mark that is as per the international standards.

"As per our experience at National Institute of Blood Diseases and Bone Marrow Transplantation (NIBD), we have treated around 50 patients diagnosed with ALL and cure rate was more than 90%," he said.

Most of these patients had good prognostic markers as mentioned earlier and most notably, their genotype was associated with the better prognosis.

"The scenario calls for immediate attention of the healthcare professionals and officials towards the issue," he said.