PakMediNet Discussion Forum : Medical Education inside Pakistan : Girl changes blood type, immune system
Girl changes blood type, immune system
Jan. 25, 2008
A te enage girl has become the wo rld’s first known transplant patient to change blo od groups and take on the immune system of her organ donor, doctors in Australia said on Jan. 25, calling her a “one-in-six-billion miracle.”
Demi-Lee Brennan, now 15, received a donor liver when she was 9 years old and her own liver failed. “It’s like my second chance at life,” she told local media, reco unting how her body achieved what doctors said was the holy grail of transplant surgery. “It’s kind of hard to believe.”
Brennan’s body changed blo od group from O negative to O positive when she became ill while on drugs to avoid rejection of the organ by her body's immune system. Her new liver’s blood stem cells then invaded her body's bone marrow to take over her entire immune system, meaning the teen no longer needs anti-rejection drugs.
Doctors from Sydney’s We stmead Childrens’ Hospital in Australia said they had no explanation for Brennan’s recovery, detailed in the latest edition of The New England Jo urnal of Medicine. “There was no precedent for this having happened at any other time, so we were sort of flying by the seat of our pants,” Michael Stormon, a pediatric hepatologist, told local radio.
Stuart Dorney, the hospital’s former tra nsplant unit head, said Brennan’s treatment could lead to breakthroughs in organ transplant treatment, because normally the immune system of recipients attacked the transplanted tissue. “We now need to go back over everything that ha ppened to Demi-Lee and see why, and if it can be replicated,” said Dorney.
“We think because we used a you ng person’s liver and Demi-Lee had low white blood cells, that could have been a reason,” he told the Daily Telegraph newspaper. Rejection is no rmally treated with a combination of drugs, although chronic rejection is irreversible. Only seven-in-10 transplant operations in Australia are successful after a five-year period due to rejection complications.
regards
aftab ahmad
Posted by: aftabac Posts: 271 :: 31-01-2008 :: | Reply to this Message