A young girl who is only eight years old would be the first Kidney transplant patient not to need life-long treatment after pioneering treatment at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Aditi Shankar’s immune system was “reprogrammed” after a stem cell transplant and as a result, her body accepted a donor kidney as its own.
Aditi’s mother donated the bone marrow and the kidney. As a result, the new kidney is working without the need for drugs that stop the body from rejecting a donated organ.
After a transplant, Immunosuppressants are important for the recovery. They usually need to be taken for life but Aditi stopped taking the drugs a month after her surgery.
Aditi’s mother, Divya said she was “happy and proud” to be the donor.
“I was so happy to give her blood cells and a kidney. I just feel so proud.”
“My mum gave me my new blood cells,” Aditi who was overjoyed said. “I got the kidney transplant when I went to special sleep and closed my eyes.
“Now I have got the line out, I can go swimming.”
Her father Uday, a 48-year-old chef, said: “Most of the support for the family has come from Aditi. She was going in for six to eight hours a day of dialysis and then she would come home and still light the whole house up.”
The first treatment on offer for Aditi was dialysis and she had to travel from her family home in Greenford, northwest London, into central London for treatment at least three times a week.
