Top doc’s team to help sick Wright siblings

Mar 2 2008 by Caroline Smith, Sunday Sun

A LEADING doctor is to review the case of a seriously ill brother and sister in a bid to keep them alive.

Newcastle-based Professor Andrew Cant, pictured below, will put the young siblings through a series of intensive tests and biopsies to determine if and when they will undergo a bone marrow transplant.

Ella and Sam Wright, aged six and four, are both fighting a rare immune deficiency and are on a cocktail of drugs and antibiotics to fight infections and viruses.

The Anthony Nolan Trust bone marrow register has spent two years searching for a lifesaving donor for them but to no avail.

This spring, Professor Cant, a consultant paediatric immunologist, will put the pair through a week of tests at his specialist clinic at Newcastle General Hospital

Their mum Sally, of Southport, Merseyside, said: “I wanted a second opinion and Professor Cant and his team in Newcastle are the top experts in their field.

“We are just waiting to hear when they can get everyone together for us so that we can bring Ella and Sam in.

“They are reassessing what our options are at the moment and exactly what would constitute an ideal match.

“A bone marrow transplant for Ella could leave her infertile with lung and kidney damage, so obviously that is not something we would go into lightly.

“Because of their rare immune deficiency, they need a donor as close a match to them as possible.

“We know that the register increases by about four per cent every year, so it could be that the perfect donor is still out there but has not signed up yet.”

The family’s hopes were dashed last year when the “perfect donor” turned out to be incompatible.

In October, doctors found a French woman on an international register who they believed could give the gift of life to the sick youngsters.

Initial tests found that the stranger was a 100pc match, and the Wright family hoped the children would have the lifesaving transplant they so desperately needed earlier this year.

But after several weeks of waiting, further tests revealed the woman’s bone marrow was not the match the doctors had hoped for and she was no longer compatible.

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Becoming a marrow donor

• Potential donors need to be aged 18-40 and in good health to join the Anthony Nolan Trust register.

• Donors who are male or from ethnic minorities are in short supply.

• To join the register, call 0901-882 2234 for an information pack, complete a medical form and a blood sampling kit will be sent to your GP’s surgery

• For more information, log onto www.anthonynolan.org.uk