New technique could ease transplant agony

London: Children who need bone marrow transplants could be spared the worst side-effects of chemotherapy thanks to a "remarkable" breakthrough.

In conventional transplants, the patient's bone marrow is removed ahead of the operation by drugs which can cause nausea, hair loss and fertility problems.

But doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London have pioneered a technique to use antibodies to clear out the bone marrow instead.

The antibodies - proteins which neutralise foreign objects - destroy the marrow without affecting the rest of the body, meaning intensive chemotherapy is not required.

Thirteen seriously ill children with severely weakened immune systems have been treated using the technique so far. The boys and girls were judged too ill for a conventional transplant but would have been unlikely to have survived into their teens without one.

They recovered twice as quickly as those given traditional transplants and have been cured of their underlying disease.

What is more, their lungs, liver and gut remained free from the damage seen with more intensive chemotherapy.

One ten-year-old boy has learned to ride a bike, while a previously sickly five-year-old has become so energetic he has been nicknamed "Stuntman" by his family.

Persis Amrolia, a consultant in bone marrow transplants at Great Ormond Street, said: "Given how sick these children were before transplant, the results are remarkable".