Santa Ana Girl Is Apparently Winner in Her Cancer Battle

A young Santa Ana girl went home from the hospital Monday afternoon, the apparent winner in a high-stakes battle against cancer.

Krystle Lee, almost 3 years old, left Childrens Hospital of Orange County just 32 days after becoming the county’s second bone-marrow transplant patient, and only seven days after the death of the hospital’s first transplant patient.

“This is a good week, a better Monday than last week,” said Dr. Mitchell Cairo, director of cancer research at Childrens Hospital. “. . . We’re really proud of how well Krystle did.”

Cancer Is in Remission

Her cancer is in remission, and doctors believe Krystle’s chances for a full recovery are very good. “She’s getting better every day now,” said Krystle’s mother, Kim Lee.

Krystle suffers from a cancer that affects the nervous-system--neuroblastoma--which had spread to her bones, her lung and to an area near the base of her skull. “She had about a 10-to-20% chance of surviving her cancer with conventional therapy,” Cairo said.

Her parents and doctors decided to combat the spreading cancer with extremely high doses of chemotherapy drugs: enough to kill not only the cancer but also Krystle’s bone marrow, necessitating a later marrow transplant.

“It scared me,” Kim Lee said. “It was very dangerous for her to have the treatment, but if it’s successful, it’s good for her. . . . We don’t have to come back for the chemo any more.”

Before the treatment, Cairo harvested and froze (at -321 degrees Fahrenheit) a small sample of Krystle’s own marrow, which was reintroduced to her system last month, after the intense chemotherapy treatment.

Bone marrow is the tissue that produces various blood cells and is essential to the body’s defenses against infection. Transplant patients such as Krystle face an extreme risk of contracting potentially life-threatening diseases before their transplanted marrow takes root.

“Any patient who can go home 32 days post-transplant is doing very well,” Cairo said Monday.

“We believe, right now, she’s in complete remission,” the doctor said, noting that 50% to 60% of neuroblastoma patients who undergo high-dose chemotherapy and subsequent bone-marrow transplants remain free of the cancer.

For 9-year-old Tori Leigh Glezos, however, it was earlier radiation treatments that proved too much for her young body to take.

The Huntington Beach girl was the first patient to undergo a bone-marrow transplant in Orange County, on June 25. But her lungs, scarred by cancer and radiation therapy, gave out last Monday.

“I’m just so sorry for (Tori). It scared me, too,” Kim Lee said, holding her own child in her arms as she and her husband, Hung, gathered their belongings and prepared to leave the hospital Monday.

Cairo has performed two more bone-marrow transplants in the last month. “Both (patients) are doing very well,” he said.

The bone-marrow transplant team at Childrens Hospital expects to treat four to six patients at a time as the program gets into full swing. “We’re at no loss for patients,” Cairo said. “We have plenty of children who are waiting for a transplant.”

Krystle will have to stay indoors for a few months, wearing a protective mask when her parents bring her back to Childrens Hospital for weekly checkups. And she’ll have to avoid eating reheated leftovers and most fresh fruits and vegetables for a while.

“Krystle doesn’t understand” what she has been through, Hung Lee said. “She’s just happy to go home.”