pune at 13 ali housseinmoayad is a regular teenager hooked to videogames what sets him apart from other teens is that this is the first time in his young life when he can play without feeling unwell for 11 years ali underwent blood transfusions every 21 days to treat his disorder of thalassemia major which made it difficult for his body to synthesise its own haemoglobin but things changed for the iraqi teenager last october when he successfully underwent a bonemarrow transplant at a hospital in pune with only a partiallymatched bonemarrow transfused from his own mother using the haploidentical transplantation protocol eight months on ali is free from the once binding need for blood transfusions and all medication related to transplants his haemoglobin has touched a healthy 147gmdl and he is now prescribed only simple drugs to keep off viral infections ali is among a handful of patients who have been successfully treated in the city using the haploidentical transplantation method for disorders such as leukaemia and aplastic anaemia alis recovery has brought much relief to his parents alis father houssien moayad houssien who has brought him again to pune for a routine checkup says their lives have changed following the transplant my daughter too was a thalassemia major but she could be treated as her bone marrow matched with her elder brothers alis bonemarrow however did not match with his siblings initially i was very sceptical about coming to india for treatment but i got a lot of confidence with the kind of treatment we received here i am very happy because ali has become healthier and now regularly attends school he says haematologist vijay ramanan who treated ali says the treatments success is significant because it expands the donorbase for thalassemics who dont find a perfect bone marrow match in their family only 1520 of the thalassemic patients are able to find a perfectmatch donor in their siblings the rest of them can get an unrelated donor from the bonemarrow registry or the cord blood bank which can be a very expensive procedure a haploidentical transplant makes it possible to treat the disorder with fewer complications even with a 50 match of the bonemarrow which is usually of the mother he says ramanan said in this treatment the bone marrow from the mother is transfused into the child using the normal transplant procedure while in a normal transplant the immunity of the patient is suppressed for about 69 months in this case the backbone of the therapy is the posttransplant treatment with a drug called cyclophosphamide coupled with the right amount of patient care before and a little after the transfusion he says vibha bafna paediatric haematooncologist with a city hospital says the therapy is good but notes that it needs the correct conditioning for it to be successful haploidentical transplants are definitely a great advancement for patients who require a bone marrow transplant because identical matches are either not possible or are very expensive but the