It's amazing what the human body can accomplish!
In Australia, a fifteen year old girl named Demi-Lee Brennan received a liver transplant when she was nine years old. At the time, she was dangerously ill with liver failure. What is truly remarkable about this story is that normally, when a person first receives a transplant the human body rejects anything foreign because it does not recognize the organ. However, in Demi-Lee's case, the doctors have found that only 9 months after the transplant, her body had totally adopted the donor's immune system after stem cells from the new liver migrated to her bone marrow. Not only that, Demi-Lee's blood type also changed to the same as the donor's blood type. This case is the first of it's kind in medical history.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080124/hl_afp/australiahealthchildrentransplant_080124175631;_ylt=AspGhlXL0jtqFupXR4HFg8wPLBIF)
Doctors and scientists are now trying to apply what happened in Demi-Lee's case to other patients who are to receive transplants as well. There is no solid explanation for this miracle but there are theories. One theory is that Demi-Lee's immune system was so weak that the stem cells migrated to the bone marrow and proliferated. Brennan hasn't taken any anti-rejection drugs for about four years now and her liver is functioning normally. There are also no symptoms of the immune cells of the donated liver attacking the host.
(http://www.australiannews.net/story/321233)
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