Marrow transplant fights bone disease By N. Seppa Children born with a hereditary disease called osteogenesis imperfecta can face a lifetime of bone deformities, fractures, and short stature. The skeletons of severely affected children are so weak that parents have been known to break a child's leg accidentally while changing a diaper. There is no known cure for osteogenesis imperfecta.
Treatment consists of inserting metal rods into the largest bones as reinforcements.
Now, initial findings in a study of three children with the disease who received bone marrow transplants from healthy siblings reveal sharp increases in the recipients' bone mass, fewer fractures, and some height gain. The work, reported in the March Nature Medicine , raises the prospect of a treatment that attacks osteogenesis imperfecta at its core. The children chosen for this study were shockingly fragile. This baby had only 3 fractures during the 6 months following the marrow transplant. The third child had had 3 fractures in the 6 months preceding transplant and none during the next 6 months.