Tennessee history made at Vanderbilt-Ingram as local soldier receives new lease on life
A Fort Campbell, KY., soldier became the first adult patient at Vanderbilt-Ingram and only the second adult in Tennessee history to receive a stem cell transplant from umbilical cord blood, offering him a fighting chance at beating leukemia.
Charles Dougherty is hoping the transplant will prove to be the cure to beating his diagnosis with leukemia. Madan Jagasia, M.D., and Brian Engelhardt, M.D., specialists in hematology and stem cell transplant at Vanderbilt-Ingram, performed the procedure several months ago, and have been watching Dougherty closely for rejection.
Cord blood transplants have been widely used to treat children with blood-borne cancers but the procedure is still new in adult patients because of the amount of stem cells needed for a larger patient. Jagasia said the techniques needed to safely carry out the cord blood transplant have also improved. "We've gotten better at freezing, transporting and collecting cord blood."
Dougherty, a husband and father of three girls, said he was surprised when he found out he had an advanced blood cancer. But a biopsy of the lymph nodes in his neck tested positive for the disease and he's been on a roller coaster ever since. He's a combat engineer for the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky., in the Alpha company's first brigade and special troops battalion. "I went back to work for a while, but I got an infection and had to be hospitalized," he said. He spent 45 days in the hospital for initial chemotherapy to treat the disease. The soldier said he's ready to be done with this fight and get back to work. "Used to, when they told you, 'you have cancer,' it was pretty much over. Now they can pretty much cure everything," Dougherty said. "It's pretty nifty. It's very advanced," he added.
Before the transplant could happen, Dougherty had to go through powerful doses of chemotherapy and radiation for a week to rid his body of any cancer that might be hiding elsewhere in his blood, which could ruin the chances of a successful transplant. While Dougherty was being prepared for transplant, the cord blood was flown in from a blood bank in New York. It arrived frozen in liquid nitrogen before being warmed at Dougherty's bedside and placed in a syringe.
The transplant itself is fairly simple -- an IV line is placed under the collarbone and the stem cells are pumped in to do their work. "These cells are smart. They home to the bone marrow -- how, we don't know. They only go to the bone marrow," Jagasia said.
Dougherty is still being monitored for graft versus host disease (GVHD), or rejection of the recipient's body by the donor's cells, which the doctors said happens 6 percent to 8 percent of the time. "Charles will basically have someone else's immune system," Jagasia explained.
Engelhardt said Dougherty has suffered some minor setbacks since his transplant, and still has a long road ahead, but he's recovering well and all signs look good so far.
"Over the last 100 days, Charles has developed some GVHD of the skin but it has responded well to treatment. His transplanted cord blood is now 'engrafted' and his new bone marrow is growing and producing white cells, red blood cells and platelets.
As far as getting back to work with his fellow soldiers in the Army, that could still be in question. "It would be our hope that we would know in about a year, but it's just too early to tell," added Engelhardt.
- by Heather L. Hall
|
