Nine-year-old Rose-Leigh Usher is on the road to recovery at Groote Schuur Hospital following a crucial stem cell transplant.
|||Cape Town - A nine-year-old Durban cancer patient is on the road to recovery at Groote Schuur Hospital following a stem cell transplant.
Rose-Leigh Usher, of Wentworth, who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, hepatosplenic gamma-delta T-cell lymphoma, last June, had the life-changing procedure on Thursday following a week of intensive chemotherapy to kill her immune system and malignancy on her bone marrow. This was in preparation for the transplant and treatment, which will cost around R600 000.
The stem-cell unit, which recently arrived at the hospital, was imported from the US, as there were no donors registered in SA which matched Rose-Leigh.
Professor Nicolas Novitzky, head of haematology at UCT, who performed the transplant, said the next six weeks would be crucial for Rose-Leigh, as the new cells tried to settle in a new host.
“Now we will have to wait for the graft to develop into a new blood volume, and for the cells to develop and multiply. The process takes about six weeks. Because she will have no immunity of her own in the next few weeks, we will have to keep her strictly isolated to minimise chances of infection. The next six weeks are very crucial… we will know during this period whether her body accepts or rejects the new graft,” he said.
While some transplant patients did well from the outset, Novitzky said they were also prone to infections owing to their compromised immune system.
So far, Rose-Leigh was “doing very well”, but there was one more hurdle. Her immune system of the new cells might not recognise her, and that could result in complications and her developing graft host disease - a common illness in transplant patients, where the graft recognises the host as foreign and attacks the host’s cells.
“But we remain hopeful. Rose-Leigh is showing good signs… she is already eating and playing. She will be closely monitored until the transplant settles in. She will need regular tests to see if she needs any blood transfusions or has any chemical imbalances,” he said.
Once out of isolation, Rose-Leigh would continue with the immuno-suppressive drugs for six months to a year until she develops her own immune system.
Speaking from her daughter’s bedside, her mother, Rosemary Ullbricht, said she was “relieved and happy” that the transplant had been performed.
“Rose-Leigh is doing very well. We were expecting the worst. She is already up and giggling… Now we will have to wait and see how her body responds to the transplant, but we remain very positive as a family. Most of all, we are all very relieved that this transplant has finally happened.”
In February, readers of the Cape Argus’s sister newspaper in Durban, the Daily News, opened their hearts and wallets and raised more than R600 000 needed to secure the stem cells and pay for hospital costs.
sipokazi.fokazi@inl.co.za
Cape Argus