A student from Liverpool has credited the transplant of blood taken from a Spanish baby’s placenta and umbilical cord with saving her life after treatment at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.
Lyra Cassell, 20, was 16 years-old when a friend noticed a lump on her body. She called her GP and was told it was a suspected hernia.
“Not long after I was told the lump was a hernia, I was out walking when I felt another lump, this time on my neck.” Explained Lyra.
“I went back to my GP who took my bloods and advised that I might be eating too much sugar and was close to being diabetic. It felt unlikely as I had always maintained a good diet and was very active, I have always been into my running.
“I was then chatting to a friend a few days later who pointed out a second lump on my neck. I had an appointment at Liverpool Royal Hospital and it felt like the first time someone took proper notice of it.
“The hospital’s consultant said it was definitely not a hernia and took a biopsy same day. I was told it was looking like cancer.”
Lyra was diagnosed with precursor T-cell lymphoblastic leukaemia, one of the rarest forms of blood cancer, and started chemotherapy at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, five days a week for six weeks.
After my chemo, I got my Measurable Residual Disease (MRD) results which showed that the chemo hadn’t killed any of the cancer. It had just stopped it from progressing and I was told we’d need to start looking at a transplant.”
Before a transplant could happen, the levels of cancer in Lyra’s body would need to be lowered, so a new round of chemo was started. A couple of months later, her MRD levels had come down so much that a stem transplant was deemed possible.
Lyra was transferred to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, one of the limited number of hospitals who can carry out the procedure, where it was recommended by Professor Robert Wynn that a cord blood transplant would be best.
Professor Rob Wynn, Consultant Paediatric Haematologist at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, explained the why a cord blood transplant was required:
“Most children with leukaemia are cured with drugs, known as chemotherapy, but with some children the drugs don’t kill all the leukaemia cells. Many of these children are cured with blood stem cell transplant. During transplant, the immune cells of the donor reject the leukaemia cells of the patient.
“I have promoted the use of cord blood as a donor cell source during my work at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital over the last 30 years. We have noticed that the immune cells of a cord blood are particularly good at curing leukaemia.
“This means many of our children are alive after a cord blood transplant where another type of transplant might have failed. We continue to research why cord blood is better in this way, and how we might use it in different situations for children suffering from difficult-to-cure cancers.”
