A potential breakthrough was discovered by researchers at the Queen Mary University London and the University of Leicester that can be more than just useful for treating a rare, fatal medical complication that affects children and young people.

One patient has already been treated and experienced significant benefits as per scientists and clinicians from the two universities. The preliminary data demonstrating efficiency of the discovery was published as a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine.

From Sciencedaily.com:

“Affected patients have episodes of bleeding in the lungs, which often need hospital admissions, and in some cases it can be life threatening. This is normally combated by the use of continuous oral steroids (which can have major side effects).

“In a child local to Leicester, we were able to show, for the first time, that there was high levels of oxidative stress in the lungs. In addition, we treated the increased oxidative stress by using of an antioxidant, N-acetyl cysteine - which has no side effects. Since she has been on this treatment she has had no lung bleeds, and the steroid dose has been significantly reduced.”

Dr Marcus Cooke, Senior lecturer in the Radiation and Oxidative Stress Section at the University of Leicester, added: “It is a really good feeling to be involved in a project looking at oxidative stress, that can make such an enormous difference to a person’s quality of life.

Idiopathic pulmonary haemosiderosis is a rare disease with an unknown cause, according to Jonathan Grigg, Professor of Paediatric Respiratory and Environmental Medicine at Queen Mary University London.