For two decades it has been helping to change the lives of hundreds of patients.

Now the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at Singleton Hospital is marking its 20th anniversary with an 800,000 expansion.

The unit was established after a campaign from patients who previously had to travel to Cardiff for treatment and in 2011 it came together with Cardiff to allow more people in Swansea to receive bone marrow transplants than ever before.

There were fewer than ten transplants taking place a year in Swansea in 1997 but since 2011 this has risen to 30 a year.

The Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee, which commissions the BMT service, has now approved increasing this to 50 a year.

It also approved a 793,000 investment for an expansion of the Singleton BMT unit, which will include new facilities such as extra cubicles as well as additional specialist staff.

Dr Al-Ismail said: It started as very much a local service for Swansea and Neath Port Talbot and has now moved to a regional service, which means we can treat more people than ever before.

Among the almost 300 patients who have been cared for in the BMT unit is Keith Pearman from Llanelli .

Keith was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in February 1994, just 15 months after tying the knot with wife Karen.

He underwent several courses of chemotherapy in Singleton Hospital and had periods of remission over the following six years.

But in 2001 the disease returned with a vengeance, requiring aggressive chemotherapy followed by bone marrow transplant using Keiths bone marrow stem cells, which had been harvested and frozen years before.

During a celebration to mark the Singleton units 20th anniversary, Keith said: The fact that Im here talking to you now is testament to the unit and all the staff involved.

It cannot be an easy place to work. All the staff there, every single person involved, I cannot praise them or thank them enough. They saved my life.

A stem cell (bone marrow) transplant involves replacing damaged blood cells with healthy ones. Its used to treat a range of conditions affecting blood cells such as lymphoma and leukaemia.

The high-dose chemotherapy damages the bone marrow, leaving the patient highly vulnerable to infection until the transplanted stem cells have had time to repair this damage.

Stem cell harvesting is done in Cardiff in one day but the transplants take place in the Singleton unit, which has all the necessary facilities, involving an inpatient stay of around three weeks.

But pre-1997, patients from Swansea and South West Wales not only had the harvesting but the transplant carried out in Cardiff.

Since starting in 1997, the unit has treated hundreds of and some of them, along with past and present staff and others involved in the services development, attended a special anniversary lunch.

Consultant haematologist Dr Saad Al-Ismail, who leads the service at Singleton , said: Patients couldnt understand why they had to spend three weeks in Cardiff. We were already treating the diseases. We had the nursing and medical expertise. So adding bone marrow transplantation was not a big undertaking.

Meanwhile, Cardiff was struggling to meet the demand from across South Wales. Patients were waiting for beds to have transplants, and often their condition deteriorated while they were waiting.

Dr Al-Ismail said: The demand was for the service to expand. But Cardiff could not expand so Swansea was the obvious choice.

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