Stem cell treatment could be the cure for two-year-old’s cancer

The heartbroken parents of the two-year-old tot – who has had already beaten leukaemia twice – are pinning their hopes on him receiving the only treatment which may save his life.

Mum Pam Neilson, of Leith, Edinburgh, revealed last week that little Kai could be accepted on to a pioneering study at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital.

He would be treated by world-leading experts in gene therapy after chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant failed to rid him of the disease.

“We are going to do everything we can to give our little boy the life he deserves,” said loving Pam, 38, the fiancée of Kai’s dad Calvin Laidlaw, 49, who has multiple sclerosis.

“We have just got to hope that we can keep Kai well between now and getting him down to London, and Kai’s consultants are working hard on this.

“It is really in the hands of the gods.”

Brave Kai was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, in September 2013, when he was just eight months old.

The toddler spent almost all of his first year in hospital, undergoing gruelling chemotherapy.

He had his left eye removed on Valentine’s Day last year after the disease spread and he has suffered many infections which had to be treated with drugs.

But despite showing signs of recovery, the family received the devastating news Kai’s leukaemia had returned in March this year.

He was given just months to live unless he had a bone marrow transplant.

Pam said: “Kai came through the transplant without any side effects and up until two months later, he was doing well.

“He was up playing and eating.

“He was the best he could physically be. Then we were told he had relapsed again. It was devastating.”

Kai’s consultants from the Glasgow Sick Children’s Hospital launched a worldwide search for an effective treatment.

They discovered a new drug, Blinatumomab, which was previously only available in America.

Kai was the first child in Scotland to be given the drug.

But just two weeks into his treatment, it had to be stopped because it was making Kai even more ill as the leukaemia was becoming more aggressive and he had become more resistant to chemotherapy.

Now his parents’ final throw of the dice is gene therapy in London.

They have been given hope by the success of one-year-old Layla Richards, who made a “miracle” recovery after she was given the highly-experimental treatment.

Professor Paul Veys, who treated her, said: “Her leukaemia was so aggressive that such a response is almost a miracle.”

However, because the treatment is so new, it is still at the study stage and has yet to be fully trialled.

Another child from England will also undergo the treatment before doctors treat Kai early in the New Year, after he has another strong dose of toxic chemotherapy.

Pam said: “We are just hoping that he will be strong enough.

“Hopefully, the chemotherapy will push back the leukaemia and give him enough time for this treatment.”

A spokesperson for Great Ormond Street Hospital said: “Plans for a trial are progressing with the biotech company Cellectis, and all the relevant UK paediatric centres will be informed when the study is ready to start recruiting.”