Spanish doctors achieve lifelong organ acceptance using donor-derived stem cell technique

In a groundbreaking procedure at Hospital Universitario de La Paz, surgeons Antonio Pérez Martínez and Francisco Hernández-Oliveros transplanted multiple organs into a teenage boy and a middle-aged woman using a novel double-graft technique. The method extracts hematopoietic stem cells from the donor’s marrow or blood, purifies them, and administers them to the recipient to generate a personalized immune profile that recognizes the new organ as self.

This “immune passport” has allowed Yassine and Nora to live without the heavy, lifelong immunosuppressive drugs that normally accompany transplants, with both patients showing no signs of rejection after more than five years. The success, detailed in Communications Medicine, follows personal motivations of the lead oncologist and builds on earlier work on mixed chimerism. The team has begun a Phase I clinical trial for ten more patients and aims to train additional staff to make the approach routine. Experts see the technique as a potential paradigm shift for transplant medicine, especially for pediatric cases.