| A 3-year-old north
Wales boy, Tom Stretch with a life-threatening
condition has been cured after a pioneering treatment
involving his mother's placenta. This child was suffering from
CGD and needed a bone marrow transplant to combat a blood
defect which had left him unable to fight off germs. The boy
had a series of serious pneumonias and an inflamed
bowel.
He needed bone marrow
transplant and there was no immediately suitable bone marrow
donor. After his mother Joanne gave birth to his sister Hannah
at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in north Wales in November last year
doctors preserved the placenta. The blood was kept in a bank
at Newcastle General Hospital's specialist children's bone
marrow transplant unit. Doctors decided to try an infusion of
the placenta blood containing the stem cells as an alternative
to bone marrow transplant.
The treatment to infuse the
cord blood into the vein took place 16 weeks ago and experts
claim that Tom's condition has now been cured and he is free
of infection and his bowel inflammation is settling rapidly.
Its first time anywhere in the
world that this technique has been used to treat CGD. |
Chronic
Granulomatous Disease
Chronic
Granulomatous Disease is a rare disease. It is estimated to
occur once in 250,000 individuals. Most often CGD is
inherited as an X-linked recessive pattern, although in about
40 percent of patients the disease is inherited with an
autosomal recessive pattern.
Patients with CGD
characteristically have increased infection. When patients
with CGD become infected, they often have extensive
inflammatory reactions despite the administration of
appropriate antibiotics. Aphthous ulcers and chronic
inflammation of the nares are usually present. Granulomas are
frequent and can obstruct the gastrointestinal or
genitourinary tracts.
|
