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Article: Promising Research on Sickle Cell Disease; Bone Marrow Transplants Offer Hope in Some Cases
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- September 29, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Bone marrow transplants are emerging as a potential new treatment
for sickle cell disease-the blood ailment that afflicts some 50,000
black Americans annually.
In two separate experiments, researchers at the University of
Chicago and at the Institut Jules Bordet et Hopital Erasme in Belgium
have used bone marrow transplants to treat successfully patients who
had both sickle cell disease and leukemia, a cancer of the white
blood cells.
One patient, a 13-year-old girl, shows no signs of either sickle
cell disease or leukemia, 4 1/2 years after the transplant.
"She is doing extremely well and is leading a normal life,
although she is smaller than she would have been without the
treatment," ...