ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 15, 1996 TAG: 9610150102
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MEMPHIS, TENN.
SOURCE: Associated Press
After 35 broken bones, 16-month-old Lauren Bryant is looking for a medical breakthrough. Without one, it's unlikely she'll ever walk or live to see 30.
But for Lauren's family there is new hope. Doctors at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital think they have figured out a way to make the child's brittle bones grow stronger.
Lauren is the first person to have a bone marrow transplant in hopes of lessening the effects of osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disease that can leave its victims with bones so fragile they break with the slightest twist.
Even dressing Lauren is a risky business.
``We can't pull anything over her head because we might break the bones in her skull,'' said her mother, Kathryn, of San Antonio.
Doctors believe the new bone marrow, from Lauren's 6-year-old brother, Christopher, will stir the production of normal bone cells.
Prior to the transplant, doctors had to get rid of Lauren's existing bone marrow with chemotherapy. Powerful drugs keep her body from rejecting the transplant.
``That's the scariest part,'' Bryant said. ``But if there's a chance, you've got to go for it. When she's older and in a wheelchair, I don't want to say to her, `Well, there was this chance, but I was too scared and didn't do it.'''
Up to 50,000 Americans are believed to suffer from the disease to varying degrees.
The hardest-hit victims die at birth or soon afterward. Victims with milder forms can lead relatively normal lives, though they are generally short and have more broken bones than other people.
``Lauren has the most severe form that one can have and survive long enough that we can hopefully do something about it,'' said Dr. Edwin Horwitz, the child's physician at St. Jude.
Chances are slim she will live to 30 years old unless some new treatment is found. She cannot sit up, roll over or crawl.
Her parents aren't even sure how many fractures she has suffered, though they believe it's at least 35. Generally, the breaks are cared for at home, sometimes by simply cinching up her clothes.
There is no cure, but the St. Jude study may help lead to genetic treatments that greatly improve the quality of life for children like Lauren.
``The hope is that for the rest of her life, she'll be making more and more normal bone-making cells and over time, she'll have more and more normal bone,'' Horwitz said.
He expects to know within weeks or perhaps months if her body is starting to produce normal bone cells.
``What's going to happen to Lauren a year from now? I can tell you what I hope, but I don't know,'' Horwitz said. ``It could be a temporary benefit or a lifelong benefit.''
He and his colleagues are looking now for five other children to join Lauren in the study.
Bryant said she and her husband, Bill, a high school teacher, and their sons, Christopher and Nicholas, 11, have grown accustomed to living with a child so easily injured. Their wish now is for her to have a chance at a normal life.
``You adapt,'' Bryant said. ``Now to me, handling her seems perfectly normal. It's just Lauren. She's got a great sense of humor, and she's good company. But she's been through so much.''
While Lauren is emotionally and mentally normal, she weighs only 11 pounds, her head is misshapen and her brittle legs are short and bowed.
Horwitz hopes the transplant lessens those deformities, too, as her bones grow stronger.
``Full-contact karate will never be her career, but she could grow up to work and support herself,'' he said.
Parents who think their children might be able to take part in the study can call St. Jude at (901)495-2529.
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP/File. July 1996 Lauren Bryant, 16 months, lies is aby CNBcrib at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.,
this summer. color.