A five-month-old female infant, weighing less than 5 kg, who was diagnosed with a rare congenital immune disorder — Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency (LAD) — got a new lease of life through a complex bone marrow transplantation (BMT) procedure at a private hospital in Bengaluru.
The infant’s early days were marred by recurrent severe infections reminiscent of the tragic loss of her elder brother to a similar infection during infancy. Her parents, Bandesha and Balamma, daily wage workers from Raichur district, noticed that her condition started deteriorating when she was two months old.
Malnourishment and low immunity made matters worse. A comprehensive immunological and genetic testing at Aster CMI Hospital in Bengaluru confirmed LAD, a rare condition with an incidence of one per million live births.
