Japanese stem cells saved girl’s life

BRISTOL The mother of a toddler whose life was saved when scientists found a bone marrow match in Japan has thanked doctors for engineering a miracle.

Millions of stem-cell samples across the world were checked when Sorrel Mason, 2, from Great Wratting, Suffolk, was given a 30 per cent chance of survival when a rare form of acute myeloid leukaemia was diagnosed. The only set of cells bearing a near likeness were from an umbilical cord frozen in Tokyo. Samantha Mason, 38, said that her daughter had made a full recovery since undergoing a transplant at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children last year. Mrs Mason praised the hospital’s bone marrow transplant unit when she met Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer. He was taking part in a tour of centres of excellence to be used in a review of the NHS.

She said: “Sorrel would be dead now if she had been left untreated. They were the most terrifying months our family could live with, but the doctors pulled off a miracle.”

Source - The Times

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