Simon Bostic At Home After Bone Marrow Transplant Operation

First ever recipient of a successful bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor, Simon Bostic returns home.

Touching news footage of bone marrow transplant patient Simon Bostic, and his mother Elisabeth. Taken through the kitchen window, the camera tracks Simon demonstrating all the playful curiosity expected of a typical 21-month-old infant: touching his hands against the panes and smiling back at his mother’s gaze.

Keywords

Medical; Bone Marrow Transplant; Surgery

Background Information

Simon was born with Chronic Granulomatous Disease (CGD), an extremely rare and life-threatening hereditary primary immune deficiency that caused his bone marrow to produce faulty white blood cells that could not fight bacterial infections. It meant any infection, however harmless to other children, could prove fatal for him. Doctors told Simon’s parents, Elisabeth and Roger, that without a bone marrow transplant their son would not survive. However, none of Simon’s relatives was a suitable donor. Simon’s older brother, Andrew, had already died aged two-and-a-half of the same condition as they both had very rare tissue types. This meant it was almost impossible to find an unrelated donor due to the lack of any suitable bone marrow registers. When a donor was finally found it was too late for Andrew who died of septicaemia. However Andrew’s diagnosis meant Simon was tested at birth and, armed with this knowledge, Elisabeth enlisted the media’s help to find the rare donor that Simon needed to avoid near certain death. Within two months, the campaign had attracted thousands of people to get tested to see if they were a match for Simon. Incredibly, one of those people was found to be a suitable donor and Simon’s transplant went ahead when he was just 18-months-old. https://www.royalfree.nhs.uk/news-media/news/the-nhs-has-saved-my-life-again-and-again/