Patients seeking cutting-edge medical care from around the globe with a well-equipped teamed of highly qualified doctors choose Türkiye due to the rising need for high-quality health care at reasonable costs.

"A successful bone marrow transplant requires an expert medical team, who are experienced in bone marrow transplants and can quickly recognize problems and emerging side effects, as well as know how to react swiftly and properly if problems do arise," said professor Dr. Betül Tavil from the Pediatric Hematology Department at Memorial Hospital in Istanbul.

A bone marrow transplant (BMT), which is also called a hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) or a stem cell transplant (SCT), is a treatment that offers a potential cure for thalassemia. BMT relies on high-dose chemotherapy to eliminate thalassemia-producing cells in the marrow and replaces them with healthy donor cells from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood, usually taken from a human-leukocyte antigen (HLA) match.

Over the past few decades, Türkiye is emerging as the leading country in medicine in Europe with respect to successful BMT. The compliance of Turkish hospitals with the high requirements of modern medicine is confirmed by the presence of a number of international accreditations.

Additionally, both the number of transplant cases and success rates have grown over the past few years. Bone marrow transplantation is 90% effective in Türkiye, and it costs roughly 50% less than it does in European hospitals, said Tavil. Additionally, she said, Türkiye has more affordable costs of living and essentials than any other country in Europe.

"We get a lot of patients, particularly from the Gulf region and South Asia, who have leukemia and Thalassemia. Patients typically believe they will experience difficulties following the transplant and they raise numerous questions that we try to answer. Although not always, there are some issues," she acknowledged.

Speaking of one of her successful cases, she said: "We once performed a bone marrow transplant on a Pakistani patient (a child) who had been diagnosed with leukemia and had come for treatment in search of a donor, but we found that her mother had a 90% match. Soon after the transplant, the mother's second pregnancy was discovered. To everyone’s surprise, the first child was born via IVF while the most recent pregnancy was spontaneous. We witnessed a really interesting case in this one," she said.

Age and recovery

Tavil stated that it is frequently difficult to discover an identical donor. "A patient's chance of having a sibling whose bone marrow is a perfect match is 35%. If the patient's siblings are not compatible, we search for a donor in Türkök (Turkish bone marrow bank) or in the international bone marrow banks," she said.

"Children who have an identical donor match have a substantially greater success rate following transplantation than those who have an unrelated donor match, which might occasionally result in difficulties. The success rate of pediatric organ transplants is higher than that of adult transplants because pediatric organs are still young and fresh, so there is a lower risk of complications," Tavil explained.

Speaking about the recuperation period, she stated that the crucial period is the first few weeks following the transplant. "The patient's bone marrow was destroyed by the high-dose chemotherapy and/or radiation used during conditioning, which severely compromised the body's immune or defense system. To reduce the patient's exposure to bacteria and viruses, extreme measures are taken. Therefore, we keep the patient in a HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filter room, which has a high capacity to remove 99.9% or more of the smallest particles from an air stream as it passes through it. A patient recovers at home (or in lodging close to the transplant center if they are from out of town/country) for two to four months after being released from hospital. Patients usually cannot return to full-time work for up to six months after the transplant," she outlined.

Financial assistance

According to Tavil, families with limited financial resources frequently ask their national health ministry for assistance. "However, our hospital does not directly provide financial assistance to the patients. There are some philanthropic organizations that serve patients from EU nations, particularly those from (Germany). However, non-EU nations frequently ask their respective health ministries for financial aid because a transplant costs between $50,000 (identical match) and $60,000 (if unrelated)."

Tavil added that all patients with these diseases who have a suitable donor should think about undergoing a transplant because BMT is more successful in younger patients. Patients between the ages of 6 and 10 are advised to seek early referral to a transplant center.