Aplastic Anemia

Aplastic anaemia is a condition in which the bone marrow becomes dry and it do not make enough new blood cells. All three types of blood cells are affected.

• Red blood cells, which carry oxygen (anaemia)
• White blood cells, which fight infections (neutropenia)
• Platelets, which help the blood to clot and stop bleeding (thrombocytopenia)

Aplastic anaemia is a condition in which the bone marrow becomes dry and it do not make enough new blood cells. All three types of blood cells are affected.

Symptoms:

• Anaemia
  
• Tiredness
• Breathlesness
• Pale skin
• Increased heart rate.

• Thrombocytopenia
  
• Bleeding gums
• Epistaxis(Nose bleed)
• Skin bruises

• Neutropenia
  
• Mouth ulcers
• Unexplained fever
• Frequent infections that last a long time

Treatment

Curative treatment includes:

• Immunosuppressive therapy
  These drugs are anthithymocyte globulin (ATG) and cyclosporine.Improvement with this therapy is seen only after 3 to 6 months.
• Bone marrow transplant (BMT)
  Bone marrow transplant (BMT) Allogenic BMT which means a HLA matched Donor is required for Haematopoeitic stem cells donation. If a patient has a matched sibling donor, a bone marrow transplant is used as a first-line therapy.If a patient does not have a sibling donor, immunosuppressive therapy is used. But, recent studies showed that a transplant from a matched unrelated donor (MUD), or mismatched family donor (haplotransplant) shows excellent success rates.
• Survival
  Aplastic anaemia is a life-threatening condition if untreated. The overall five-year survival rate is about 80% for patients after treatment.