Boy Doing Well After Stem-Cell Transplant
By Jeff Sturgeon
Roanoke Times & World News
14 June 2005

An ailing Roanoke teenager told a Web audience Sunday from a hospital in North Carolina that he has successfully completed a stem- cell transplant to try to reverse a bad case of Crohn's disease.

It could be many months or even years before doctors know if Jordan Fifer can live Crohn's-free, but a major hurdle has been cleared.

"I could get out of this joint by the end of the week," the 15- year-old wrote Sunday from Duke University Medical Center in Durham .

Jordan , a computer buff who is keeping an online journal of his medical odyssey, isn't out of the woods yet. He will live with his mother, Hope Trachtenberg-Fifer, in Durham for several months of follow-up care. He expects to be home in time this fall to start his junior year at Patrick Henry High School .

When he arrived in Durham in April, he was suffering from a severe case of Crohn's, an inflammatory bowel disease that's considered incurable. Symptoms include stomachaches, diarrhea, internal and rectal bleeding, fatigue, fever and weight loss, among other problems. Merely eating a meal can cause a flare-up.

Having received little relief from drugs, Jordan enlisted university doctors to try to restart his malfunctioning immune system using a blood stem-cell transplant, a procedure routinely used to treat immune system diseases. Its use against Crohn's is considered experimental and still high-risk.

Doctors first harvested and set aside some of Jordan 's own blood stem cells. They then deleted his immune system with chemotherapy and reinjected the stem cells. Doctors then watched carefuly to see whether Jordan 's body would accept the transplant and whether the stem cells would begin producing new blood cells. Doctors told Jordan on Sunday that he had reached that milestone, known as engraftment.

As he worked through those various steps and described them in postings during the past three weeks, Jordan recounted bone pain that he called "horrible," "really horrible" and "absolutely horrible."

Sunday, he wrote: "I've been feeling great - today I got a two hour 'pass' to leave the hospital and go take a shower at the apartment. I had to wear my mask, but that is no major deal because I have to anyway in the halls and lounge and all or whenever I leave my room. So that was nice. No IV to deal with for a little while. Now I am back hooked up, my dad (who was here for the weekend) just left, and I am going to watch the Simpsons in a little bit."

Jordan 's dad, Gary Fifer, called the results wonderful.

Engraftment "is happening ahead of the schedule and is happening much stronger than might have been expected at this point in time," Fifer said. "Now we have to say, 'OK, is that going to benefit the disease?' "

The transplant is supposed to enable Jordan to grow a new immune system without the affliction that is believed to cause Crohn's. However, doctors won't know whether he is well until after he resumes eating regularly and is weaned off drugs that could be masking the disease if it is still present.

Jordan, who has had Crohn's for five years, was the first person to have a stem-cell transplant at Duke to address Crohn's.

A yard sale-type fundraiser to help defray the family's expenses has been scheduled from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. July 9 outside the Kroger at Towers Shopping Center , where Jordan used to work.

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