It's highly unusual for an extra set of kidneys to grow,
but a miracle happened for one British child.
By Rosemary Black
Daily News Staff Writer
Three years ago, doctors caring for a British girl facing surgery made an amazing discovery: she’d actually grown two new kidneys to replace the failed ones that had caused the health problems she’d suffered since birth.
Surgeons at Sheffield Children’s Hospital in England found that Angel Burton's new kidneys had started doing the work of the diseased ones, according to Sky News Online. The youngster, now 8, is no longer facing kidney failure.
The doctors apparently did not see the new kidneys that were perched above the originals. On scans, which had been done for five years, they appeared as one kidney.
"It’s a real miracle," Claire Burton, Angel’s mother, told Sky News Online. "We’re just so grateful to have Angel back to her happy, healthy self."
The little girl had a rare condition called duplex kidney that causes the organs to be fused in the center. Even rarer, in Angel’s case, was to have both organs be duplex, which means she actually had four kidneys and four ureters.
From the time she was born, Angel’s health got worse. Doctors diagnosed her with bilateral reflux, meaning that urine was leaking into her kidneys and infecting them. Tests showed that the kidneys had been severely affected.
During an operation to craft an artificial valve in October 2007, the extra kidneys were discovered. Nearly three years later, Angel’s looking at a bright future and is on track to recover fully.
