Transplant breakthrough; BOOST TO CHILDREN'S TREATMENT.

CHILDREN in need of bone marrow operations may be spared some of the worst side effects of chemotherapy. Great Ormond Street Hospital and the UCL Institute of Child Health, have developed a technique which uses antibodies which recognise and kill the patient's own bone marrow to create space for the donor cells.

The technique, which reduces the need for intensive chemotherapy, also lessens the risk of rejection.

It has been successfully used in children with genetic defects of their immune systems who were too sick to undergo a traditional bone marrow transplant and probably saved their lives.

Without a bone marrow transplant to replace the defective immune system with one from a healthy donor, children often die from infection and other complications and 50 children with these disorders receive a transplant each year in the UK.

Previously children needed high doses of chemotherapy to wipe out their own bone marrow and create space for the donor stem cells prior to a transplant.

This chemotherapy can result in severe damage to the liver, gut or lungs as well as hair loss and sickness.

It also often leads to problems with growth and puberty and can result in infertility in later life.

During the past 10 years, the bone marrow transplant unit at Great Ormond Street, led by Dr Paul Veys, has pioneered the use of gentler chemotherapy drugs to enable bone marrow transplants in with less side effects and a better survival rate.

Certain groups of patients, such as babies under a year old and those going into transplant with severe damage to their lungs, still have a high death rate.

A study into the new technique, showed that 13 of 16 patients were cured of their underlying disease.

They were all too sick for a conventional bone marrow transplant and the results have been hailed as a remarkable breakthrough by medics..

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