Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Saved Child from Severe Combined Immunodeficiency

Eight years after marriage, Li Li finally had her first child and she named him "Yang Yang", which means abundance of joy in Chinese.  

However, it was not long before Li Li's happy days were disrupted again. Tortured by a lasting pneumonia, Yang Yang was diagnosed as having "X-linkage severe combined immunodeficiency".

After consulting many doctors and hospitals, Li Li finally got in touch with Sun Yuan, Dean of Hematology Department of Beijing Jingdu Children’s Hospital. On carefully examining Yang Yang’s conditions, Sun told Li and her husband: "If you have faith in me, please bring your child here. My team and I will do our best to treat him."  

Yang Yang had a severe diarrhea on May 3. Li Li and her husband hurried him to Jingdu. They learnt that the youngest child receiving transplant operations in Jingdu was just two months old, younger than Yang Yang. Moreover, the hospital had done nearly 100 hematopoietic stem cell transplants for patients suffering primary immunodeficiency. 

As Li's and her husband’s bone marrows were not exactly identical with that of their child and they had no other children, they had to wait for matching marrows from China Marrow Donor Program and China Cord Blood Corporation.

The following days were hard. Yang Yang lost his immunity almost entirely and under great risk of being infected at any time. His life is in danger. In order to prevent infection, Dr. Jiang Fan arranged for Yang Yang to use a laminar flow bed and doctors from the Department of Nutriology conducted joint consultations. Yang Yang's conditions were brought under good control. Luckily, Doctor Sun found identical marrows for the child in the shortest time possible.

Hematopoietic stem cells began to be fed back to Yang Yang on May 31, 2019. Over 20 days later,  allogeneic hematopoietic stem cells from umbilical cord blood were successfully transplanted into his body.  

Yang Yang successfully got out of the transplant cabin on June 26, 2019. This means that he had smoothly overcome the transplant process and was closer to convalescence. He has been in good conditions ever since.