“SHE CAN FINALLY BE A CHILD AGAIN”
One patient who was part of the clinical trials was Austrian Maria Schreierer.
After a bout of COVID-19 in February 2021, the then 10-year-old had gone back to school, but she continued to suffer from fatigue.
Her parents initially thought she was just recovering from the coronavirus.
“The teacher called us and said she was not well, so we took her home. This happened again several days later, and she came home yelling in pain, that her bones were aching,” said her mother, Mrs Vesna Schreierer.
A series of blood tests later, Maria was diagnosed with T-cell ALL. With no specialised paediatric oncology hospital in their hometown, they travelled 200km for treatment in Austria before moving to Switzerland for further therapy.
At St Gallen Hospital in Switzerland, Maria was declared leukaemia-free after treatment.
But soon after, she suffered seizures and protracted bone infections, and more intense therapy followed.
By this time, Maria was wheelchair-bound. More chemotherapy would have killed her, rather than saved her life.
The doctors warned that if the cancer returned, there would be few options.
In 2022, she relapsed. The doctors at St Gallen told her parents that their daughter’s chances of survival were less than 5 per cent.
But one doctor, Dr Jeannette Greiner, refused to give up hope and approached Prof Allen Yeoh in Singapore for help.
When the parents heard of the new treatment, they made an immediate decision to bring Maria to Singapore.
“It took us three seconds to decide because we knew there was no other way,” Mrs Schreierer said.
