'Oscar's miraculous recovery'

By Jane Elliott Health reporter, BBC News

Oscar is now fully recovered

Oscar Parry has had leukaemia twice, three bone marrow transplants and five brain haemorrhages.

His doctor says it is a "miracle" that the 10-year-old Essex boy is still alive and is back at school as well as fundraising for the hospital that saved him.

His mother Yvonne said: "Even by Great Ormond Street Hospital standards he is doing well."

Oscar was born with a genetic syndrome called Noonan's Syndrome which left him with a minor heart condition and slightly small for his age.

Treatment regime

Doctors thought these were the only side effects, but no one knew that the condition had also made him vulnerable to leukaemia and at the age of three he developed acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) - one of the most common forms of the disease

To begin with, Oscar was treated with low doses of chemotherapy, which worked well.

However, after three years of treatment his blood counts dropped and he was diagnosed with a rarer, more aggressive, type that could only be cured by a bone marrow transplant.

A lot of special stuff goes on here and a lot of sick children get better, but he is probably at the top of our list Dr Paul Veys

After three months a good match was found and Oscar had his first transplant. But his blood counts remained low and he needed an operation to remove his spleen. For some time this made a difference.

But just as he was set to go home, his leukaemia came back and a second, more experimental, type of transplant was needed.

Oscar's doctor at Great Ormond Street, Paul Veys, head of the bone marrow transplant unit ,said they gave him just a 10% chance of survival.

His mother said this was one of the worst times for the family.

More battles

But Oscar's battles were not over as he then developed a very virulent version of graft-versus-host disease, where the new donor cells start to fight the patient's body.

This is not uncommon following a transplant, but Oscar was very ill and spent weeks in intensive care with infections.

"There were times when Oscar was in intensive care and we thought he wouldn't make it," said his mother.

"It was numbing.

Oscar had leukaemia twice

"The first time he went into intensive care and had brain haemorrhages I was making his funeral arrangements."

Dr Veys agreed that things had been fraught.

"He had one genetic disease and two, or possibly three, leukaemia at various times," he said.

"He needed three transplants, the third with slightly specialised cells - he was the first child to be treated in the UK with this treatment.

"The bottom line is you do a transplant to try and cure the leukaemia, it comes back, you do the second transplant in a different way making the new cells fight like crazy but then they fight too much so we have to switch them off and that is the the reason for the third specialised cells, and the chances of his coming through that were extremely small.

"The horrible irony is that it's often not the leukaemia that gets you, it's the heavy treatment or the after-effects of it, either the infections or the graft-versus-host disease."

Yvonne said things are now looking very rosy, although Oscar does have osteoporosis due to two years on steroids.

His growth also halted while he was taking the drugs, and his teeth were not replaced as he lost them.

This is all starting to improve and Oscar, aged 10 is now even boasting that he's taller than his four year old brother, Finn.

"We came home June 2007 and have not been back since and his immune system is running at about 75%," said Yvonne.

"He went back to school in February 2008 and is absolutely loving it and joining in with everything.

"He is great and we have a normal family life now."

'Not a dry eye'

Dr Veys, said Oscar is a star.

"A lot of special stuff goes on here and a lot of sick children get better, but he is probably at the top of our list.

Oscar is now back at school

"Not many children survive three procedures, but his outlook is very good now and he is helping fundraising by giving presentations to major donors.

"He is very good and will stand up in front of a crowd.

"He looks younger than he is, and when he tells his dramatic story there is not a dry eye in the house."

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