B.C. Children’s Hospital research breakthrough hopes to make child bone marrow transplants safer

Bone marrow transplants save lives, but often come with life-changing consequences. New research from B.C. Children's Hospital is providing hope.

For childhood leukemia patients, bone marrow transplants are one of the few treatment options available.

And while up to 90 per cent of those transplants are successful, there’s a significant risk of chronic graft-versus-host disease, or GvHD.

“When we transplant this brand new immune system in, it can reject the entire body,” explained Dr. Kirk Schultz, an investigator with B.C. Children’s Hospital’s Michael Cuccione Childhood Cancer Research Program. “And actually, people can die of that, or it can cause a chronic disease.”

GvHD can lead to devastating consequences, from chronic pain to mobility issues that prevent people from many activities—including work.

“I’ve even had one adult say to me, ‘If I had known what this disease, this chronic graft-versus-host disease was, I don’t know if I would have had the transplant and be cured of my leukemia in the first place—I’m not sure the suffering I’ve had over these 10 years or 20 years is worth it,’” Schultz said.

But work from Schultz’s team at the B.C. Children’s Hospital Research Institute offers new hope. They’ve identified that GvHD has three sub-types, with early data showing one type responds to standard steroid treatment, while one doesn’t.

“Our goal is to not only get that cure rate and that cure from that type of therapy, but also to get it safe enough to have a healthy and normal life,” Schultz said.

For parents like Kathrina Saguin, who now works at B.C. Children’s Hospital, after seeing her own son go through childhood leukemia, this research provides hope.

“Hope gives someone a fighting chance,” said Saguin. “A new life. Hope means that you will be able to get married, you will be able to graduate, you will be able to finish high school, university, drive, and do a lot of the things normal adults—normal young adults—can do.”

Saguin’s son Bailey was actually treated by Schultz 20 years ago.

“With a lot of the research that’s coming out right now, it does give a lot of families a lot of families a fighting chance—and better outcomes.”

As for Bailey, he survived childhood leukemia—even going on to play football for Vancouver College—with hopes this research will allow others to live similarly full lives.