Inside Duke Medicine
Media Spotlight: News & Observer features teenager’s combo lung and bone marrow transplant
posted April 26th, 2010
Laura Margaret Burbach is discharged amid a confetti parade. Her new lungs and bone marrow came from the same donor, and this is the first time this transplant combination has been attempted. It should spare Laura Margaret the need to take anti- rejection drugs for her body to accept her new lungs. Photo by Shawn Rocco - srocco@newsobserver.com
By Sarah Avery, staff writer
The stop at Duke Medical Center was supposed to be a quick checkup, a side trip as the Burbach family headed from their home in Georgia to Myrtle Beach for vacation.
But when doctors saw 15-year-old Laura Margaret Burbach toting oxygen and appearing wan - scary on a 4-foot, 5-inch teenager who weighed less than 60 pounds - they suggested the family instead check her into the hospital.
Laura Margaret's lungs were shot. A casualty of repeated infections her faulty immune system failed to vanquish, her lungs were no longer capable of keeping her alive.
And that meant her needs were far greater than doctors envisioned, pushing medical science beyond anything ever tried.