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Bubble boy7/6/2023 ![]() ![]() Well you see, all blood cells arise from a single precurssor cell known as the hematopoietic stem cell. So how does the body manage to get itself into such a mess. The Immune System provides immunity through two ways : Innate, which includes physical barriers, blood borne complementary proteins and phagocytes which are present from birth and Acquired which consists of the T lymphocyte and B lymphocyte mediated immunity. It acts by producing antibodies to act against the antigens entering the body. It protects us from millions of threats, both internal and external, each day. The human immune system is the one which defends us from germs and mico-organisms everyday. To understand the depth of SCID, let’s get down to the basics- The Immune System. SCID is a hereditary disease which results in recurrent infections due to a non-functioning immune system. Someone who lived in a bubble - a literal one.ĭavid Vetter, born in Texas to David Joseph Vetter and Carol Ann Vetter, suffered from a primary immunodeficiency syndrome called severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), right from birth. "That is one of the burdens of my life." One possibility, he said, is that, relative to body weight, David received many fewer marrow cells than an infant recipient would.Living inside a bubble - all of us do that in different ways, don’t we? Some of us don’t want to face the reality of life, some of us want to shut everything else out because we consider ourselves too superior or too inferior and some of us just simply like being alone and in our own world. ![]() "I don't think I will ever know" why the transplant failed, he said. Shearer said he does not know why David's transplant did not "take" had it worked, he said, the boy might have developed immune agents in time to fight off the EB virus. Dozens of SCID babies have survived the transplants and developed immune systems even when no perfectly matched donor can be found. It was not until his dying days, when he was removed from the bubble for treatment, that David knew the touch of his mother's skin.īabies born with SCID today are given bone marrow transplants shortly after birth, using technologies unavailable when David was born. The boy, who had a high IQ, lived his last years at his suburban Houston home in a three-room plastic compartment complete with a small piano, a telephone hookup to school and an assortment of books and toys. David's treatment was unique - no patient ever lived longer in a germ-free environment. ![]() He said approximately 10 percent of all bone marrow and organ transplant recipients develop cancer, and that "David himself signed the consent form that described that risk." Shearer said the findings from David's case will not alter the medical protocol for such transplants, but will provide a "fuller understanding" of the risks involved. However, if recipients are immune deficient, as David was, or if they have received immuno-suppressant drugs to decrease the chance that their body will reject the transplant, the risk increases of the virus going berserk and triggering the uncontrollable growth of malignant cells. The procedure poses little risk for recipients whose immune systems are in order the "T-cells" in their blood can overwhelm the invading virus. More than 90 percent of adults have EB virus in a latent state in their blood cells, Shearer said, and researchers have long known that a transplant can activate it. 22, 1984, as a result of massive bleeding from tumors that attacked his intestines, liver, lungs and brain. The transplant never "took," and David died Feb. She was the donor in an October 1983 transplant operation that was supposed to trigger the growth of an immune system in David, freeing him from the latest in a series of germ-free plastic "bubbles" he had lived in since being born with severe combined immune deficiency (SCID). The boy's last name has been withheld by hospital officials to protect his family's privacy.ĭavid received the Epstein-Barr virus - perhaps best known as the agent that causes infectious mononucleosis - from the bone marrow of his older sister, Katherine. "He is the patient who has tied together infections by viruses and the development of cancer," Shearer said of his world-famous patient. The analysis was published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. Shearer, David's physician and a professor of pediatrics at the Baylor School of Medicine here.ĭoctors have long believed that common viruses, under highly selective circumstances, can cause cancer in humans. ![]() David, the 12-year-old "bubble boy," died last year because a bone marrow transplant that had held out hope for a normal life instead infected his immune-deficient body with a common virus that "ran amok," causing incurable cancer, his doctor said today.Īn analysis of David's autopsy by researchers at four medical institutions produced the "first conclusive evidence of cancer developing in a human being after infection by a virus," said Dr. ![]()
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