DiGeorge Syndrome is a genetic disorder that each person who has it may have a different picture, but the most common of this syndrome are heart defects and the absence or lack of development of the thymus and parathyroid glands.
The thymus is a gland that is behind the sternum and among other things, controls the body's immune system, therefore, this fatal pathology that in 1% of those affected lack thymus, usually ends with death due to serious infections that the immune system cannot defend. They are children affected by a deadly immunodeficiency.
But there are new hopes For children suffering from DiGeorge syndrome with thymus deficiency, the Duke University Medical Center has performed transplants to more than 30 children achieving hopeful results, and 75% of patients are still alive. After obtaining thymus tissue from children who, in order to undergo surgery, part of the thymus must be removed, it is grown in a laboratory and then transplanted to the recipient, in just 3 or 4 months, children have T lymphocytes that recognize and attack invading infectious agents.
At the moment this is the only medical center in the world where this type of transplant is performed, but they are good results that will soon improve giving the opportunity to live to children born with this genetic disorder.
The study has been published in the newspaper Blood.
