How an umbilical cord kept on ice for 10 years saved the life of an Essex toddler

  • Callum Fairhurst reports for ITV News Anglia on the successful recovery of toddler Oti Hughes.

The mother of a toddler who had leukaemia has praised the "magic people" who saved her son - after he received a stem cell transplant from an umbilical cord that had been kept frozen for a decade.

Two-year-old Oti Hughes, from Saffron Walden, in Essex, was diagnosed with an aggressive and fast-spreading form of leukaemia when he was one in July 2022.

He received months of chemotherapy at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge but his life was turned around after a match was discovered from stem cells in an umbilical cord, frozen for 12 years.

The anonymous donor was a woman from the US and Oti has now been cancer-free for eight months.

Oti Hughes who received months of chemotherapy for leukaemia at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. He is now free of cancer. Credit: Jo Hughes

His mother, Jo Hughes, 35, a former project manager, said: "There are magic people out there. It's not just father Christmas. Magic is real and she's my magic person."

She added that despite feeling "on my knees" during the treatment for her son's acute myeloid leukaemia, she said and her husband Terry had to get on with things.

Oti's older brother, four-year-old Remy, was tested in attempts to find a stem cell match.

After the transplant from the US donor - in which the cells were injected into Oti - the toddler spent 48 days in isolation.

Oti Hughes, from Essex, who is cancer-free after a stem cell transplant. Credit: Jo Hughes

Mrs Hughes is urging others to sign up as a potential stem cell donor through the DKMS website - an international non-profit organisation combating blood cancer - which encourages people to join the blood stem cell donor register.

"You can save lives. It's going online ordering a swab on the DKMS website. If you are eligible and aged 17-55 and a good bill of health you'd be able to do that," she added.

The mother-of-two has so far got hundreds of people to sign up to the stem cell donor register but wants to do more.

To get involved in the donor database people just need to take a quick swab inside their mouth.

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