Medical tourism in India: a boon

Posted by johnallanes on May 8th, 2013

Medical tourism in India provides an opportunity to patients to avail world-class medical facilities at the fraction of a cost. These are customized packages, starting from consultation to complete medical treatment. These packages are cost effective, hence are very popular with patients from other countries. In addition to the world-class medical care all aspects of stay are also well looked after. It covers all patients seeking surgical or other alternate forms of treatment. Alternate forms of treatment include regenerative stem cell treatment that is yet to receive FDA approval. The medical treatment in the developing countries is approximately one eighth of the cost of the same treatment in a western country. Cost is one of the main factors thatdrive the patients to come to India for treatment from all over the world.

The growth of medical tourism in India can be attributed to many factors like Cost factors, qualified doctors, less waiting time etc. The most common treatments are coronary angioplasty, Heart bye pass, Eye surgery, Facial surgeries etc. ENT, orthodontics, infertility are also catching up fast. Muscular dystrophy is a hereditary disease that causes weakening of the muscles and subsequent loss of movement in the body. People who suffer from muscular dystrophy have missing or incorrect information in their genes, which prevents them from making the proteins needed for healthy muscles. It develops over time and since it weakens the muscles in the process, a person is unable to perform normal functions of walking, running and sitting etc. Muscular dystrophy treatment in India has been discovered by a number of experiments where clinical mice have been injected with mesenchyme stem cells that have proven to regenerate muscle fiber.

Muscular dystrophy treatment in India is still an experimental therapy. The patient receives the mesenchyma stem cells intravenously and through endovascular grafting. Patient is monitored for this physical activity and is on an increased nutritious diet plan. Physiotherapy combined with orthopedics helps to prevent further deformities and this whole treatment is supplemented with traditional Indian massage therapies to build muscle strength. After 6-8 weeks of treatment, there is a significant improvement and the body has more strength than before. For the stem cell extraction either umbilical cord blood derived cells are used or patients own fat cells. Stem cells from the umbilical cord encourage the cells to produce dystrophin, the protein responsible for connecting muscle to the bone. Once the body starts producing this protein on its own, assisted by stem cell injections the patient is on the road to recovery.