Transplant a success

Press, 12 June 1984, Page 4

Transplant a success

PA Auckland Doctors at Auckland Hospital have done their first successful bone marrow transplant. The patient is an Auckland woman, aged 20, who had the rare and fatal disease, aplastic leukaemia. Her transplant, using her brother’s bone marrow, was done last November and doctors say the operation can now be declared a success. “She appears to be okay and it looks as if it will be a long-term survival,” a haematologist, Dr John Matthews, said yesterday.

The transplant was the most recent in a series of six performed at Auckland Hospital since 1979. The other three adults and two children have died. Dr Matthews said the other transplants were successful technically, but diseases recurred. Four of the patients transplanted had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a more difficult disease to treat. “It is remarkable that 100 per cent of our grafts have taken. In all other cases, we have been beaten by the disease, not the technique."