Dr. Rajesh Sawant

AREA(S) OF INTEREST:

Apheresis techniques including plateletpheresis, Therapeutic apheresis techniques like plasma exchange, leukapheresis, Peripheral blood stem cell harvests, Irradiation and leukodepletion of cellular blood products, Quality management in blood banking Internal Audit & Accreditation, Advanced Red cell serology, HLA typing and Antibody studies in Transplantation, Flowcytometry for quality assessment of stem cells and HLA Crossmatching,

PROCEDURES PERFORMED:

Routine functioning of Transfusion Medicine Department, Consultations for hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients and donors, Counselling of patients with reference to special transfusion requirements like Phenotype matched blood components, Counselling of patient and family regarding HLA and Immunogenetics related reports and their clinical correlation

NAME OF INSTITUTE(S):

• Sheth G.S. Medical College
• R.N. Cooper Municipal General Hospital
• Tata Memorial Hospital & ACTREC
• LTMG Hospital
• Rajkot Voluntary Blood Band and Research Centre
• PD Hinduja Hospital

FELLOWSHIPS:

• Recepient of APHIA Bursary award for attending 12th International Summer school training program on Immunohistogenetics 2015
• Attended the “International Summer school on Immunogenetics”,July 2019 organised by ASHI

• Secured first rank at MD Pathology exams- Mumbai University
• Was awarded the fellowship of the International Society of Blood Transfusion twice (2005 and 2008).
• Secured "Best Poster Award" twice at the National Conference of Indian Society of Blood transfusion & Immunohematology (ISBTI).
• Invited as a Referee for 'Transfusion Medicine' – The official journal of the British Blood Transfusion Society for 2007.
• Completed the Certificate course in 'Clinical Research Methodology' & Professional diploma in clinical research.
• Awarded the 'Young Scientist Award' by the Indian society of immunohematology and blood transfusion in 2008.
• Recipient of H D Shourie award in 2012 for significant transfusion to the field of Transfusion Medicine.
• Secured 1st prize for “The Science Behind the cure award” at Thane Hematology Group, October 2019

21 years total experience. Has worked at Tata Memorial Hospital and ACTREC, Rajkot Voluntary Blood Bank and Research Centre and Hinduja Hospital

Poster Presentations

• Correlation of CDC results and DSA performed on Luminex Platform: Deriving cutoff MFI for prediction of positive donor specific cross match- A Pilot study. Sawant R, Suchita J, Deshpande A.
• Red cell allo-antibody (Anti –M) resulting in false positive CDC crossmatch. Mehta P, Naker D, Sawant R, Sheth S
• HLA DSA class II positivity in renal transplant-dangerous if ignored!!! Naker D, Sawant R
• Impact of Donor Specific anti –HLA antibodies in Halploidentical HSCT. Rajesh Sawant, Anand Bodade, Santanu Sen, Sameer Tulpule

Publications

• Sawant RB, Rajadhyaksha SB. , Plasma exchange for thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation; J Assoc Physicians India. 2005 Nov;53:981-3.
• PMID: 16515239 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
• Sawant RB, Rajadhyaksha SB.Correlation of CD34+ cell yield in peripheral blood progenitor cell product with the pre-leukapheresis cell counts in peripheral blood. J Assoc Physicians India. 2005 Dec;53:1031-5. PMID: 16572958 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
• Chhaya SU, Sawant RB, Rajadhyaksha SB. HLA-chimerism in allogeneic haplo-identical peripheral blood stem cell transplant – a case report.  Indian J Hum Genet 2004;10: 76-77 D’Mello LC, Sawant RB, Chhaya SU, Rajadhyaksha SB.  The Confidential Unit Exclusion
• (CUE) – Does it really enhance blood safety”. Indian J Hematol & Blood Transfusion.  (accepted for publication - December 2004)
• Rajadhyaksha SB, Sawant RB, Kadam PT, Jathar SK. Evaluation of Hemocue Plasma Haemoglobin Analyzer (HPHA) method for estimation of hemolysis in red cell concentrates. Transfusion 2005; 45 (suppl 3), 80A.
• Sawant RB, Bharucha ZS, Rajadhyaksha SB, Das D.  Utility of haemoglobin colour scale for haemoglobin estimation of blood donors.  Vox Sanguinis 2005; 89 (suppl 2), 22.
• Sawant RB, Jathar SK, Kadam PT, Rajadhyaksha SB.  A comparison of leukodepletion filters (laboratory and bedsideuse) for filtration of red blood cells. Vox Sanguinis 2006 91 (suppl 3),220.
• Sawant RB, Bharucha ZS, Rajadhyaksha SB : Evaluation of hemoglobin of blood donors deferred by the copper sulphate method for hemoglobin estimation. Transfusion and Apheresis Science 36 (2007) 143–148.
• Rajadhyaksha SB, Sawant RB: Clinical Use of Blood Components. Chapter 4, Medical Clinics of India, Volume1, No.3.
• Rajadhyaksha SB, Sawant RB: Transfusion support in oncology patients. Chapter 4, Education Book for 13th National CME in  Hematology and Hemato-oncology; Jan 2007.
• Sawant RB, Jathar SK, Rajadhyaksha SB, Kadam PT : Red cell haemolysis during processing and   storage. Asian Journal of Transfusion Science, Vol 1(2), 62-66.
• Rajadhyaksha SB, Sawant RB: Transfusion Medicine; Whats New? Chapter 58,Haematology Today (2008) 459-468.
• Degree of HLA haplotype matching of kidney donors with reference to their relationship with the patients. Suchita Jogale, Ramila Patil, Rajesh Sawant, Anand Deshpande Vox Sanguinis (2013) 105 (Suppl. 2), 131
• Correlation of CDC Results and DSA performed on Luminex Platform: Deriving cut-off MFI for prediction of Positive Donor Specific Cross-match – A Pilot Study. Suchita Jogale, Rajesh Sawant, Anand Deshpande Vox Sanguinis (2013) 105 (Suppl. 2), 132

Professional Memberships

• Member of Asia Pacific Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Association (APHIA)
• Member of Indian Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ISHI)
• Life Member-Indian Society of Transfusion Medicine
• Life Member-Indian Society of Blood Transfusion and Immunohematology
• Member-International Society of Blood Transfusion
• Member-Arabian Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics