THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 23, 1996 TAG: 9610230390
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 81 lines
Six years ago, Michael Sancilio made medical history before he was old enough to go to school.
The Virginia Beach boy became the first leukemia victim to undergo an umbilical cord blood transplant, using blood taken from the cord of his sister, Christina Grace, at her birth.
Michael, whose medical problems didn't end with the procedure, died Monday at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters of a massive blood infection, said his mother, Denise Sancilio. He was 10.
Although Michael's leukemia had been in remission for five years, the little boy had been plagued with health problems, Sancilio said.
He suffered from graft-versus-host disease, in which a newly transplanted immune system attacks the body of the recipient. More than once, he had fought off septicemia, a blood infection, which his health problems made him susceptible to. But on Monday, aggressive treatment failed.
Michael's transplant, while it didn't work perfectly, did grant him a longer life - years of Christmases and adored teachers and comic books - and gave his family more time to enjoy his sunny personality.
From the treatment, he gained six years of life, and in turn, he enriched the lives around him, Denise Sancilio said. From her son, she learned ``strength - that's the only word I can think of. And he taught a lot of other people hope, love, caring.''
Michael was diagnosed in April 1990 with chronic myelogenous leukemia, a cancer of the blood. He was given less than a year to live.
Doctors said he would need a transplant of bone marrow, a substance in the bones that produces red and white blood cells.
None of his family members had matching tissue, but Sancilio was pregnant with Michael's sister at the time. Hoping that Christina Grace would be compatible with Michael, doctors harvested blood from her umbilical cord when she was born.
Several months later, that blood was given to Michael.
The experimental cord blood transplant had been done successfully only three times before, and only for Fanconi's anemia, not leukemia. The transplant was done at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore.
His leukemia returned, and about eight months after the procedure, Michael received a bone marrow transplant from Christina, who was by then nearly a year old and not endangered by the process.
The leukemia went away after the second transplant, but Michael suffered from the graft-versus-host disease. He lost the use of his legs. For the two years before his death, he got around with a wheelchair. ``I always told him, if he was my heart, I'd be his legs,'' Sancilio said.
His health problems got in the way of other things. He couldn't start school until he was 7; at the time of his death, he was studying between a second- and third-grade level.
But his problems didn't prevent him from living his life as fully as any 10-year-old. He enjoyed classes and his teachers at Alanton Elementary School.
At the time he got his first transplant, he adored the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He would call out their signature ``Cowabunga, dude,'' and was happy to get his head shaved before cancer treatment, since it made him look more like his idols.
His tastes changed a bit as he grew. Lately his heros were the Power Rangers. He had already picked out his Halloween costume: the Gold Ranger.
He was loved and fussed over by his brother, Anthony, 13, and the sister who saved his life. When they got into a spat, Christina, now 6, might remind him that he owed her, but ``she was like Michael's second mother, a little nurse,'' Sancilio said.
Michael, who lived on Bay Point Drive, is survived by his father, Tony, and his mother, brother and sister. Other survivors include his grandparents: Larry and Rachel Sancilio, and Donald and Lillian Bowers.
A Mass will be said Thursday at 2 p.m. at the Church of the Holy Family on Great Neck Road. The family will receive visitors before the service, at 1 p.m.
Michael's obituary included a tribute from his older brother: ``He will always live in my heart. There were things he could not do here on Earth, but my sister Chrissy and I truly believe he is doing those things up in heaven.''
Donations may be made to the Michael John Sancilio Fund, the Bank of Tidewater, P.O. Box 3368, Virginia Beach 23454, attention A.M. Randolph. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Michael Sancilio, 10, died 6 years after his umbilical cord blood
transplant from his sister. by CNB