Little Armando is just seven months old and lives here in an isolation room at Texas Children's Hospital. He had pneumonia or RSV one time and never got better. Just days ago he received a bone marrow stem cell transplant from his three year old sister. She was a perfect match. We expect those children to do very well and we expect both children to have healthy life spans.
Stem cells are the most primitive cells which are used to create a new and healthy bone marrow.
The bone marrow is that part of the body that produces blood and those cells necessary to fight infection and protect us from cancer. We're doing very well with stem cell transplants from living donors. We couldn't ask for anything more, we're just waiting. Each new medical discovery like the recent gene therapy brings the hope of curing serious conditions like S.C.I.D. however until this research becomes more widely applied bone marrow stem cell transplants will continue. Copyright 2000 Belo Interactive Inc., All Rights Reserved.