‘Lion-hearted’ ten-year-old Aurora’s ‘second chance’ at life after cancer remission and stem cell transplant – The Isle of Thanet News
By daniellenierenberg
Fighter: A year long battle but Rory is still smiling
In January 10-year-old Aurora Pile-Grays family were told they may lose their little girl as a rare and aggressive cancer took its devastating toll.
The previous November Aurora affectionately known as Rory had been declared in remission from the disease that she had been fighting since May 2020 but a cruel blow saw a severe relapse with the cancer progressing to her skull, eyes, neck, spine, liver, kidneys, lungs, abdomen and pelvis.
A discussion with the consultant over going home from hospital and preparing for end of life care took place but lion-hearted Rory was not ready to give up her fight against Burkitts Lymphoma which affects blood and bone marrow and her family were not ready to let go.
After a year-long battle with the disease, seven rounds of intensive chemotherapy, stays in Royal Marsden and Great Ormond Street hospitals and targeted therapy with trial drug Inotuzumab, Aurora was declared cancer free again at the end of April.
The Inotuzumab drug also offered the family, who live in Garlinge, a chance for Aurora to be at home despite treatment.
Mum Keisha, 28, said: We chose Inotuzumab because it meant a better quality of life for Rory, she could come home to us and her brother and sister rather than having to be in hospital.
The trial drug, and cancer all clear, opened the way for the youngster to undergo a bone marrow transplant on May 13 all the more vital as chemo had wiped out her immune system.
First there were 10 radiotherapy sessions to get through involving cranial boost, where Auroras face was bolted to the bed so she couldnt move.
The transplant which is universally referred to as a new birthday to signal a second chance at life took place at the Marsden and involved replacing old bone marrow cells that are failing to produce healthy new cells, with cells from a donor. The aim is to create a new immune system and hopefully prevent cancer returning or mutations occurring.
The stem cells Aurora now carries should begin to reproduce in her own body and allow her bone marrow to work as normal in producing healthy red cells, white cells and platelets, since her body is no longer capable of doing so after the effects of both the cancer and the treatment.
Auroras donor cells were frozen in December which meant on the day they had to be defrosted and infused within 20 minutes. Auroras donor produced nine bags of stem cells. Only four were required, leaving 5 for future use if needed.
Each bag is defrosted in a water bath around 38 degrees so that by the time its infused its not too different to body temperature. They are then put into separate syringes and pushed through a central line into the body.
The family have been told there is just a 10-20% chance that the transplant will achieve long lasting remission, but the St Crispins school youngster has so far beaten the odds and mum Keisha says her little girl is a fighter.
In her blog Growing Pains and Paper Planes, Keisha says: Shes been amazing throughout this entire journey and Im unbelievably proud to call her my daughter. Im in awe of her strength, determination and resilience and shes shown us all that sometimes the smallest hearts overcome the biggest battles.
So far Aurora has responded well to the transplant and there is evidence of engraftment where the donor cells find their way to her bone marrow and begin to make new blood cells. White cells are the first to engraft which include neutrophils, then red cells and then platelets.
Keisha said: We were worried the effects would be awful as Rory was so sensitive to the chemo but it is going really well.
Rory is up every day, listening to audio books and doing lots of colouring, cracking jokes and just being Rory.
It is such a relief. In January when we realised the cancer had spread and she could lose the use of her legs, bladder and bowel we had to talk about making her comfortable at home. But we were not ready to give up. I said it wasnt that time yet, not all the time that Rory was laughing and joking and looking forward to seeing her brother and sister. She wasnt giving up and we werent.
Now there has been this complete 360 turnaround. Everything still depends on how she takes to the transplant. On day 28 a sample will hopefully show what percentage are donor (cells) and what percentage are her own. Hopefully it will show primarily donor.
Rory is on immunosuppressants for up to a year but potentially could be able to return to school in six months time.
Keisha said: Shell go back as a Year 6 and has missed two years but has been doing schoolwork for an hour each day.
She is looking forward to it, more the social side than the work!
Rory has won the hearts of the Thanet community during her battle with cancer with many following the familys progress through Keishas blog and also donating to a fundraiser for life-saving treatment. People also signed up on the bone marrow register following Keishas highlighting of the desperate need for donors, especially people of mixed ethnicity.
Keisha said: We are unbelievably grateful and humbled by the support people have shown us over the past year. The kind words, the gestures, the gifts, the donations, the shares, the marrow registrations and the sense of community has helped us more than you will ever know.
Read more from the original source:
'Lion-hearted' ten-year-old Aurora's 'second chance' at life after cancer remission and stem cell transplant - The Isle of Thanet News
- 5 year old boy from Iraq undergoes world's first of its kind bone marrow transplantation in India - The Times of India - March 31st, 2025
- Superior outcomes of haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplantation over chemotherapy in AML patients 55 years or older - Nature.com - March 31st, 2025
- Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Center - NYU Langone Health - March 22nd, 2025
- Bone Marrow Transplantation Market Poised to Achieve USD 14,336 Billion by 2031 - Persistence Market Research - openPR - March 22nd, 2025
- BioRestorative Therapies to Report 2024 Financial Results and Host Conference Call on March 27, 2025 - The Manila Times - March 22nd, 2025
- Man Cured Of Sickle Cell Disease In New York Thanks To New Gene Therapy - Forbes - March 22nd, 2025
- Boost in cancer treatment: PGI working on lab for stem cell, gene therapies - The Times of India - March 22nd, 2025
- Clonal dynamics and somatic evolution of haematopoiesis in mouse - Nature.com - March 11th, 2025
- Mitochondria-enriched hematopoietic stem cells exhibit elevated self-renewal capabilities, thriving within the context of aged bone marrow -... - March 11th, 2025
- TET2 deficiency increases the competitive advantage of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells through upregulation of thrombopoietin receptor... - March 11th, 2025
- Garuda Therapeutics Closes $50 Million Series A-1 Financing to Advance Off-the-Shelf Blood Stem Cell Therapies - GlobeNewswire - March 11th, 2025
- Abu Dhabi Stem Cells Center and Yas Clinic first in UAE to receive AABB accreditation for haematopoietic progenitor cell collection - Abu Dhabi Media... - March 11th, 2025
- Discovery of lung-based blood stem cells may transform transplant therapies - Medical Xpress - March 1st, 2025
- VUMC part of new study validating curative therapy for sickle cell disease - VUMC Reporter - March 1st, 2025
- What Is the Role of MRD Testing Before HSCT in MDS/MPN? - DocWire News - March 1st, 2025
- Melphalan-based conditioning with post-transplant cyclophosphamide for peripheral blood stem cell transplantation: donor effect - Nature.com - March 1st, 2025
- Mesenchymal Stem Cells Market Projected to Reach USD 11.26 Billion by 2034, Growing at a CAGR of 12.9% - openPR - March 1st, 2025
- See snazzy slugs in all their luminous glory Februarys best science images - Nature.com - March 1st, 2025
- On the origin of neutrophils - Nature.com - March 1st, 2025
- Four-year-old donates stem cells to save her baby sister from blood cancer in Odisha - The Hindu - February 20th, 2025
- Effect of pre-transplant cytoreductive therapy on the outcomes of patients with MDS or secondary AML evolving from MDS undergoing allo-HSCT: a... - February 20th, 2025
- A heart disease trigger that lurks inside bone marrow - Harvard Health - February 20th, 2025
- 4-year-old donates stem cells to save sister as SCB performs first-of-a-kind bone marrow transplant in Odisha - OTV News - February 20th, 2025
- KU Cancer Center recognized for transplant that saved 1-year-olds life - WDAF FOX4 Kansas City - February 20th, 2025
- Orca-T With RIC Is Safe in Advanced Hematologic Malignancies - OncLive - February 20th, 2025
- SCB conducts Odisha's first bone marrow transplant on two-year-old - The New Indian Express - February 20th, 2025
- Bahrain's pioneering use of sickle cell disease treatment hailed by medical experts - The National - February 20th, 2025
- Cancer survivor is the first monumental bone marrow transplant patient in Baton Rouge in 8 years - NOLA.com - February 11th, 2025
- Autologous Cell Therapy Market to Hit Valuation of US$ 44.55 Billion By 2033 | Astute Analytica - GlobeNewswire - February 11th, 2025
- Nanoparticle that cuts middlemen could improve stem cell therapy - Futurity: Research News - January 31st, 2025
- GATA2 mutated allele specific expression is associated with a hyporesponsive state of HSC in GATA2 deficiency syndrome - Nature.com - January 31st, 2025
- Coordinated immune networks in leukemia bone marrow microenvironments distinguish response to cellular therapy - Science - January 31st, 2025
- How the bone marrow microbiome responds to immunotherapy - Chemical & Engineering News - January 31st, 2025
- My Experience With Stem Cell Therapy: Snake Oil or Silver Bullet? - GearJunkie - January 31st, 2025
- Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation - StatPearls - NCBI ... - January 22nd, 2025
- Doctors retrieve stem cells from 20-month-old to treat thalassaemic sister - The Times of India - January 22nd, 2025
- YolTech Therapeutics to Initiate a Clinical Trial for YOLT-204, a First-in-Class Bone Marrow-Targeted In Vivo Gene Editing Therapy for -Thalassemia -... - January 22nd, 2025
- School of Medicine professor receives grant to study improved cancer treatments - Mercer University - January 14th, 2025
- 1st stem cell therapy, new HIV drug approved - ecns - January 5th, 2025
- Suppression of thrombospondin-1mediated inflammaging prolongs hematopoietic health span - Science - January 5th, 2025
- A pilot raced through the airport to surprise an old friend: the woman who saved his life - CNN - December 27th, 2024
- Types of Stem Cell and Bone Marrow Transplants - December 27th, 2024
- Explained: What is mesenchymal stem cell therapy? - Drug Discovery News - December 18th, 2024
- Stem Cell Transplants Offer New Hope for Saving the Worlds Corals - Technology Networks - December 18th, 2024
- Scientists Present Research on Novel Cancer Therapies at ASH - City of Hope - December 18th, 2024
- Navigating CAR-T cell therapy long-term complications - Nature.com - December 18th, 2024
- High-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplant ineffective for patients with mantle cell lymphoma - News-Medical.Net - December 18th, 2024
- Stem Cell Therapy Market Is Expected To Reach Revenue Of - GlobeNewswire - December 18th, 2024
- The Importance of Cellular Therapy in the Clinical Case of a Young Man With a Challenging Precursor B-cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia - Cureus - December 18th, 2024
- A search for the perfect match, Apex six year old in need of donor - CBS17.com - December 18th, 2024
- New insights into survival of breast cancer cells in the bone marrow - News-Medical.Net - December 9th, 2024
- Cellular trafficking and fate mapping of cells within the nervous system after in utero hematopoietic cell transplantation - Nature.com - December 9th, 2024
- Saving lives, one stem cell at a time - Texas A&M The Battalion - December 9th, 2024
- Turn Biotechnologies Announces Landmark Study to Assess Effectiveness of ERA Therapy in Restoring Bone Marrow - PR Newswire UK - December 9th, 2024
- Orca Bio Presents Three-Year Survival Data with Orca-T in Patients with Hematological Malignancies at the 66th ASH Annual Meeting - Yahoo Finance - December 9th, 2024
- You are the match. How UNC student honored her late grandfather with life-saving effort - Raleigh News & Observer - November 29th, 2024
- scRNA-seq revealed transcriptional signatures of human umbilical cord primitive stem cells and their germ lineage origin regulated by imprinted genes... - November 29th, 2024
- Atlanta pilot with an aggressive cancer finds lifesaving help from a stranger and a simple test - The Atlanta Journal Constitution - November 29th, 2024
- Researchers have brought the promise of stem cell therapies closer to reality - The Week - November 29th, 2024
- Bone Marrow Donors Can Be Hard to Find. One Company Is Turning to ... - November 15th, 2024
- Hematopoietic Stem Cells and Their Niche in Bone Marrow - November 15th, 2024
- Bone Marrow Transplant Program - Overview - Mayo Clinic - November 15th, 2024
- Bone Marrow Donors Can Be Hard to Find. One Company Is Turning to Cadavers - WIRED - November 15th, 2024
- More stem cells for sickle cell gene therapy readied with motixafortide - Sickle Cell Disease News - November 15th, 2024
- Skull bone marrow expands throughout life and remains healthy during aging, researchers discover - Medical Xpress - November 15th, 2024
- Adult skull bone marrow is an expanding and resilient haematopoietic reservoir - Nature.com - November 15th, 2024
- Evaluation of standard fludarabine dosing and corresponding exposures in infants and young children undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation -... - November 15th, 2024
- Stem cells grown in space show super powers but theres a catch - Study Finds - November 15th, 2024
- Getting a Stem Cell or Bone Marrow Transplant - October 21st, 2024
- Acquisition of durable insulin-producing cells from human adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells as a foundation for cell- based therapy of... - October 21st, 2024
- 1.5 Lakh Indians Register To Save Lives: Join the Mission To Fight Blood Cancer - The Better India - October 21st, 2024
- How Stem Cell and Bone Marrow Transplants Are Used to Treat Cancer - October 13th, 2024
- Stem Cell (Bone Marrow) Transplants - MD Anderson Cancer Center - October 13th, 2024
- Donating Bone Marrow and Stem Cells: The Process and What To Expect - October 13th, 2024
- What to expect as a stem cell or bone marrow donor - October 13th, 2024
- Structural organization of the bone marrow and its role in ... - October 13th, 2024
- Stem cell donor from down the road saved my life after global search - BBC.com - September 23rd, 2024
- Awaiting the call: family hopes to find blood stem cell donor - Claremont Courier - September 23rd, 2024
- Michigan woman one of first in world to successfully receive bone marrow from deceased donor - WDIV ClickOnDetroit - September 23rd, 2024
- Next-generation stem cell transplant: Revolutionizing a lifesaving cancer therapy - The Business Journals - September 23rd, 2024
