, which weakened her immune system and meant her kidneys were failing. Specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital spoke with international colleagues about the special transplant approach, which has been used in other children with SIOD. First, a bone-marrow transplant using stem cells from her mother, Divya, rebuilt Aditi's immune system. Six months later, she had a kidney transplant - again donated by her mother - and her immune system accepted the organ. Image caption, Aditi with her mother and father Divya told the PA Media press agency: "I was so happy to give her blood cells and a kidney. I just feel so proud." Aditi said she had had "a special sleep" for the surgery. Now she has recovered, she says it is great. "I can go swimming," she says. Prof Stephen Marks, children's kidney specialist at GOSH, says Aditi's treatment appears to have been a success. "She is the first patient in the UK who has had a kidney transplant to not require immunosuppressive medication after the surgery," he s){kind=link}
Eight-year-old Aditi Shankar has become the first child in the UK to receive a special type of kidney transplant that does not require her to take long-term drugs to stop rejection of the organ.
Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital say the breakthrough was made possible by reprogramming her immune system before giving her the new kidney.
To do that, they used bone-marrow stem cells from the donor – Aditi’s mother.
It means Aditi’s body accepts the new organ as her own.
Within weeks of the transplant, Aditi was taken off immunosuppression, removing the risk of long-term side-effects from these powerful drugs, which usually have to be taken daily to prevent organ rejection.