n 2005 EM, a four year old who suffered from acute lymphoblastic leukemia and whose life expectancy was three months, received a transplant of stem cells from his own umbilical cord: a treatment is unprecedented in the world and that until then had not success, because the patient's own cells were not effective in the fight against cancer. Two years later, a team of German and American doctors published in the journal Pediatrics the results of the procedure: at 20 months after transplantation had no cancer cells in your body, a situation that continues until now, six years later, what will most likely cure.
This is the period after which doctors believe that a child is effectively cured of the disease as EM becomes the world's first patient is cured of leukemia by transplantation of stem cells themselves.
The particularity of this transplant is that it did with the patient's own cells, while most of the cases were performed with stem cells donated by others. In 20% of procedures, cells belonging to brothers of the patient, while the remaining 80% are used stem cells from other people.
The girl began to experience the first symptoms at age 3. Blood tests revealed he suffered leukemia. Even though he was undergoing chemotherapy, suffered two severe relapses and cancer cells were reaching the brain. His parents had kept her umbilical cord at birth, without thinking that would save her life.
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