Transplant Patient Makes Medical History

[19Dragon52]

(((Hi All)))

Although this girl did not have a Liver Transplant related to Hep C Liver Damage I thought it a good article.  Something different and quite a marvelous oddity.


Transplant Patient Makes Medical History
Reuters
Posted: 2008-01-25 14:31:31
Filed Under: Health News, World News
CANBERRA (Jan. 25) - 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, 15, is the first known transplant recipient to adopt the blood type and the immune system of her organ donor, to the amazement of the medical community and Brennan alike. "It's like my second chance at life," she said. "It's kind of hard to believe."
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.

Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Alex Richardson

[Mongo]

The human body is so amazing...

Great article!

[hanklive39]

Quote: "calling her a "one-in-six-billion miracle."

I believe that's exactly what she is!!! However, one has to remember the semantics in play when one reads the article... Case in point: Quote: "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."

This never happened before!!! Nor is it likely to occur so soon again!!! At least naturally that is... Chimmerism is something that has been somewhat successful to pre-screened candidates through the use of combining bone marrow transplants from the donor with the organ that would be transplanted also which would result in some transplant patients no longer having to be dependent on immuno-suppressant drugs for the rest of their lives which is the case for my own experience as a transplant recipient. Chimmerism has been practiced since the nineties, and is currently being explored in Kidney transplants.

Next is the fact that her own body changed blood groups while on anti-rejection drugs which is also a first!!!
The key statement is:  "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." They need to find out how this happened because it NEVER happened to anyone before and in fact, it is totally the opposite of what happens via chimmerism so. it's no wonder that those Doctors are really perplexed and "flying by the seat of their pants"... They also need to find out how her blood changed from O positive to O negative from the use of anti-rejection drugs because this is also considered an "Enigma"

Hopefully I'll be able to find out more when I speak to some my transplant surgeon & Hepatologists friends at UPMC to get more details on this article.

Respectfully,
Henry