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Ben Preiss
In a World's First, a Girl's Blood type spontaneously changed after a Liver Transplant
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Australian Demi-Lee Brennan was nine years old girl and desperately ill when she received the donor liver in a transplant operation. It was discovered nine months later that her blood type had changed to that of her donor as had her entire immune system. Apparently this happen as a result of stem cells from her donor’s liver entering her bone marrow. This is the first time that this is known to have happened and as a result Demi-Lee does not have to take the toxic anti-rejection drugs that transplant patients need to use for the rest of their lives.  Dr Curtin says they then took the brave step of taking the girl off the anti-rejection drugs to kill her own immune cells three-and-a-half years ago.
"Over a period of time, as we got her right off the immunosuppresion, [there were] no more side-effects, no more breaking down blood, no more tablets to take," Dr Curtin said.
"The holy grail of transplants was achieved.
"That's what we were trying to achieve for everybody but Demi's body had done that herself."
Other organ transplant patients have been taken off anti-rejection drugs, but nearly only with the aid of a bone-marrow transplant.
Doctors say a rare few can be taken off immunosuppression but are extremely difficult to identify.
The hospital's director of medicine, who was Miss Brennan's transplant doctor, says there was one other problem for his patient.
Dr Stuart Dorney says the medical miracle meant she was no longer protected against any diseases she had been immunised for.
"We had to tell Demi one day she was going to have to be totally immunised like a baby again," he said.
"We did her blood tests and she had no immunity to measles and no immunity to mumps, even though she'd had the immunisations as a baby."
(abc.net.au)Source: theage.au Via: abc.net.au |
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