Millions of stem cell samples across the world were checked when two
year-old Sorrel Mason, from Great Wratting, Suffolk, was given a 30 per cent chance of survival after being diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia.

After no match was found in Europe and America, the only set of cells bearing a near likeness were from an umbilical cord frozen in Tokyo.

Yesterday Sorrel's mother, Samantha, 38, told how her daughter had now made a complete recovery since undergoing a transplant at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children last year.

A spokesman for United Bristol Healthcare Trust confirmed Sorrel was one of only two cancer patients in Europe who received a bone marrow transplant from Japanese cells.

Mrs Mason, who runs a garden centre with her husband, Robert, praised the hospital's Bone Marrow Transplant Unit as she met the Government's Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson.

Sir Liam visited the unit, where Sorrel underwent treatment, as part of a tour of "centres of excellence" to be used in a review of the NHS led by Lord Darzi.

Mrs Mason said: "Sorrel would be dead now if she had been left untreated.

"She had a rare form of acute myeloid leukaemia, which is rare in itself. The outlook was very bleak as there was no bone marrow which had even a close resemblance to Sorrel's.

"The stem cells frozen in Japan were the only match in the world which could have been used.

"They were the most terrifying months our family could live with, but the doctors pulled off a miracle for us.

"I was so frightened of catching an infection I would cross the road when I heard someone cough."

At the unit, Sir Liam met past and present patients, including Dominic Hurford, 31, who has become a doctor since undergoing a bone marrow transplant at 16. Dr Hurford is now an anaesthetist at the hospital.