Nine-year old girl gets six-organ transplant

NEW YORK - Agence France-Presse

Alannah Shevenell rides on a sled with her grandfather, Jamie Skolas. AP photo

A nine-year-old girl is making what doctors described as a remarkable recovery Feb. 5, days after surgeons transplanted six of her organs in a groundbreaking medical procedure.

The surgery performed on Jan. 31 on young Alannah Shevenell, sought to remove an aggressive cancerous growth festering since 2008, and that had attacked her stomach, liver, pancreas, esophagus, small intestine and spleen. The surgery was performed in Boston, Massachusetts at Children’s Hospital.
“For just under 100 days Alannah and her grandmother have been staying at Children’s while she received treatment for a rare and aggressive cancer that was compromising several of her internal organs,” the hospital said in a statement.

“When all other treatments had failed, Heung Bae Kim, MD, director of Children’s Pediatric Transplant Center suggested a multivisceral transplant that would remove Alannah’s tumor and replace the six organs that had been damaged by its presence.