A procedure performed successfully on a baby at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin offers new hope for leukaemia sufferers.
Late in March a team of doctors at the National Children's Bone Marrow Transplant Centre at the hospital, led by Dr Aengus O Marcaigh, carried out Ireland's first umbilical cord blood transplant on then 12-month-old Daryl Byrne from Clondalkin, Co Dublin.
He had been diagnosed as having a very rare and aggressive form of childhood leukaemia. Since the procedure was performed no traces of the disease have been found in the child.
But he will be monitored for a year before doctors are confident enough to give him the all-clear.
The umbilical cord blood transplant procedure is similar to bone marrow transplantation, but uses blood from the umbilical cord of a newly-born infant, rather than bone marrow, as a source of haematopoietic stem cells.
When transplanted the cells are capable of regenerating a completely new blood system in the patient.
Daryl Byrne's form of leukaemia could not be treated successfully by chemotherapy alone, and required some form of haematopoietic stem cell transplantation. No matching donor was found in his family.
The Blood Transfusion Service Board initiated a search of national and international registries for a suitable source. It was found in a unit of umbilical cord blood in France.
Dr O Marcaigh (34), a consultant paediatric haematologist, said last night the procedure successfully performed on Daryl Byrne could also be performed on adults, although the effect was slower. But he had seen it performed successfully on a 90kg (14 stone) adult in the US, he said.
In this country at present, umbilical cord blood from new-born infants is routinely discarded with the cord itself, and there is no registry as in other countries. In the US and other European countries the cord blood is frozen, and stored for use in procedures of the kind performed on Daryl Byrne.
Dr O Marcaigh thinks it may have been the expense involved which prevented the compiling of such a registry here, but now feels "it has to happen", not least because matching between Irish people is more likely due to the lack of racial mix in the country.
This was important as even among siblings matching takes place in only one out of every four cases.
Another incentive for such a registry is that with a registry of umbilical cord blood, cells for the transplantation procedure are more readily available than for bone marrow transplantation. There are also lower incidences of viral infection than with bonemarrow transplantation, as well as a lower incidence of some of the serious and potentially-fatal complications associated with bone marrow transplantation.
Dr O Marcaigh feels the new procedure can help in particular the comparatively large group of children who develop Daryl Byrne's form of leukaemia.
A 1988 graduate of Trinity College, he spent eight years at the Mayo Clinic and University of California in the US.
There he performed two umbilical cord blood transplant procedures. He believes the procedure will now be performed regularly in Ireland.
