Little Mila returns home to Croatia after successful treatment in America

Mila Rončević (Photo: Private album)

26 August 2020 – More good news in the story about little Mila Rončević from Croatia who has been fighting leukaemia (acute myelogenous megakaryocytic leukaemia AML M7) and was given just a 1% chance of beating it. 

A massive fundraising campaign in Croatia and abroad back in April last year helped raise $5.6 million to get her to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in the United States of America for urgent treatment.

Now, after more than a year and three months, during which Mila had a successful bone marrow transplant which saw her leukaemia recede, she has returned with her parents to her hometown of Rijeka. 

“She is now well, the treatment was successful, but she is still at high risk for five years,” her father Marin told daily Jutarnji list, adding that they are now starting again “from scratch”.

Announcing her return to Croatia, Mila’s father said that she was still in the post-transplant phase, but immunoconstructed and without GVHD (healthy recipient cells do not attack donor cells), meaning without serious consequences.

(Photo. Private album)

Marin said going to Philadelphia was the right decision, which has been confirmed by the successful outcome of the treatment. 

“In Croatia, the chances for successful treatment were below 1%. It was also the right decision because at that moment we had no alternative, nor enough time to look for it. It is difficult to actually talk about percentages because as far as we are told, cases with similar diagnoses that have been successfully cured in Croatia and Europe do not exist,” he said after the operation.