CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian teenage girl has become the world's first known transplant patient to change blood groups and take on the immune system of her organ donor, doctors said on Friday, 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," Brennan told local media, recounting 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 blood 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 Westmead Childrens' Hospital said they had no explanation for Brennan's recovery, detailed in the latest edition of The New England Journal 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 transplant 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 happened to Demi-Lee and see why, and if it can be replicated," said Dorney.
"We think because we used a young 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 normally 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.
Reuters
5 comments:
It is such a rare case for the sake of medical miracle that patient did reject with trans planted organ ,the immune system but to be taken over by new liver stem cell to accepted this new organ .it seem a breakthroughs on transplants surgery to show how incredible the stem cells are ,but does it bring neither good or bad effect on medical aspect ?it still remain mysterious and need taking years and days to prove.
Because it have a bunch of cases reveal patient who have just operated in transplant surgery still risk their life in a great chances of rejection by immune system .such one or a minority case does not represent a whole success in transplanting technique. Researchers still have to explore a more new medical discovery to prove it .So it is too early to be surprised and announce to the public that we had already step a great pace on constructive development .it seem pathetic to their insightful expectations .Worse still, the needy will being mislead and end up in suffering from rejection
For an other usual issue, as we all know that why it may create a bad result is the stem cell transplants technique are being exploited the evil- mind scientist for cloning purpose. It will result in duplicating a army of soulless soldier to take over the worlds or launching a terrorists activity which is harmful to world
But it is being said in all walks of life and being broadcasted by a great varieties of holly wood's movies
At last but not least , i hope this new discovery will not end up in tragic ending
It is such a rare case for the sake of medical miracle that patient did reject with trans planted organ ,the immune system but to be taken over by new liver stem cell to accepted this new organ .it seem as a breakthroughs on transplants surgery to show how incredible the stem cells are ,but does it bring neither good or bad effect on medical aspect ?it still remain mysterious and need taking years and days to prove.
Because it have a bunch of cases reveal patient who are going to have transplant surgery still risk their life in a great chances of rejection by immune system .such one or a minority case does not represent a whole success in transplanting technique. Researchers still have to explore a more new medical discovery to prove it .So it is too early to be surprised and announce to the public that we had already step a great pace on constructive development .They seem to be pathetic with their insightful celebration .Worse still, the needy will being mislead and end up in suffering from rejection
For an other usual issue, as we all know that why it may create a bad result is the stem cell transplant’s technique are being exploited the evil- mind scientist for cloning purpose. It will result in duplicating a army of soulless soldier to take over the worlds or launching a terrorists activity which is harmful to world to fulfill their ambition.
But it is being a controversial issue in all walks of life and being broadcasted by a great varieties of holly wood's movies such as the Matrix, i robot.
At last but not least , i hope this new discovery will not end up in tragic ending and create a devastating effect to the human being.
sorry to post twice because the first is not proof read
Alvin, you're right. We can only treat this "success" as nothing more than a miracle. However, I'm sure a lot of research will be done in this area because of this "miracle".
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