Michael Shirman, a 31-year-old leukemia victim, will receive a bone-marrow transplant from his sister, Inessa Flerova, at Hadassah Hospital here this week, in a final attempt to save his life.
But doctors said Sunday that the prognosis was not good because his condition has deteriorated and it may have been too late to save him when Inessa arrived in Israel November 5 after a nine-month struggle with Soviet authorities to get exit visas for her whole family. According to the doctors, Shirman may have had a chance had his sister, the only possible donor, been allowed to come to Israel when she first applied for a visa last February.
They said the transplant procedure was postponed for more than a month because of Shirman’s weakened condition. It has worsened in recent weeks and he is not responding to chemotherapy.
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