By Dr Ananya Mandal, MD
A team of Australian doctors have identified a new disease and its cure. In their report published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases the doctors from The Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) report a case of a young NSW woman ill for almost a decade with repeated hospitalizations. She is now said to be suffering from a diseases that disabled the signaling processes of her immune system. The diseases is not named yet. Dr Maher Gandhi, head of QIMR's Immunohemotology Laboratory believes there are more cases of this disease. He said this Monday, “I haven't got a name for it other than T-cell signaling defect of which I assume there are quite a few different types… There are no recorded cases of this in the literature. Katie is unique ... I think we're at the tip of the iceberg here.”
About the case he said, “Katie presented with a range of symptoms when she was eleven. No one could identify her condition and no treatment had been successful. She did not respond to regular treatments and she continued to get sick, often complicated by life-threatening infections.”