In what has been termed to be the holy grail of medicine till date, an Australian girl has spontaneously changed blood groups, adopting her donor’s immune system after she underwent a liver transplant. Doctors who have treated her say that this happens to be the first known case of its type.
When she was just nine years old, Demi- Lee Brennan fell ill with liver failure, after which she received the liver transplant. Nine months later they discovered that she had changed blood types and that her immune system had switched over to that of the donor.
Apparently, stem cells from the new liver migrated to her bone marrow.
Now, several years later, Michael Stormon, a hepatologist who is treating her said, that she is a healthy 15-year. He had given several presentations on the case around the world and had head of nothing like it till date.
“It is extremely unusual, in fact we don’t know of any other instance in which this happened. In effect she had had a bone marrow transplant. The majority of her immune system had also switched over to that of the donor,†said Stormon.