Doctors at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System have cured two brothers of Sickle Cell disease using a new treatment for the disease.
The treatment is a relatively uncommon type of stem cell transplant that is performed without chemotherapy.
The brothers, Julius and Desmond Means, ages 25 and 19, have spent their lives in and out of hospitals, each suffering from different complications of the disease.
Their transplants were possible thanks to a third brother who was a match for both, against long odds.
According to Dr. Damiano Rondelli, director of stem-cell transplantation at UI Health, Julius and Desmond’s healthy older brother Clifford, 27, matched 10 of 10 H.L.A. genes with both of them — an occurrence of “extremely low” likelihood,
The men’s mother, Beverly Means, also noted the good fortune.
“I had won the lottery of health,” she said.