A Girl's Life May Be Saved by an Unusual Donor--Her Dad.

The article discusses how Courtney Hayworth was the first patient with Ewing's cancer at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis to have her tumors treated with a procedure called a haplo transplant. Using a device that creates a magnetic field, doctors isolated stem cells from her father's blood and injected them into Courtney's bloodstream. If all goes well, they say, the new cells will boost Courtney's gravely depleted defenses, giving her the jump-start she needs to survive. The procedure may be her last chance. Although ill from the side effects of the transplant, including temporary loss of strength in her legs, Courtney manages a smile Oct. 8 as she receives intravenous medication. "I just have to go day by day," she says. So far, 96 children treated with haplo transplants at St. Jude have survived diseases like sickle-cell anemia and leukemia when all other treatment has failed. What's more, the new technology allows the patient's parents to act as stem cell donors--an important breakthrough, since until now donors needed to have a genetic makeup nearly identical to the patient's. Siblings are the best candidates for donation, but 70 percent of patients cannot find a match within their own families;.