Jinhua Peng
Jinhua's Story of Care
 Yue Ming Zhou saves a newspaper article clipping written in Chinese over 12 years ago. The article tells the story of her daughter Jinhua’s rare, incurable, and deadly disease. Jinhua's story captured the attention of the local news media because of how rare and tragic her disease was. She needed care that simply wasn't available in China at the time, and without it, Jinhua would not live past the age of 10.
About Jinhua
More about Jinhua's Story
Jinhua Tells Her Story
I was diagnosed with Takayasu’s Arteritis at Shanghai’s Children Hospital. The artery connecting to my left kidney had closed off, the artery to my right kidney had become very small, and the aorta below my diaphragm was completely constricted. This was what was causing the problem. My parents visited many experienced and famous doctors in Shanghai and Beijing. But none of them could find a solution to treat my disease. Some of them told my mom that I was not going to live more than 3 years, which was frightening to her. There was one doctor from Beijing who wrote a letter to us, and told us he could perform the kidney bypass surgery, but with only a 30% success rate. My family put off putting me through surgery in Beijing and instead, brought me to the United States hoping to find a cure for my disease, or at least a treatment. Once here, we were referred to Children's Hospital Los Angeles, and eventually, to Andreas Reiff, MD, in the Division of Rheumatology. The treatment Dr. Reiff prescribed for me, stopped my disease in its tracks. Unfortunately, significant damage had been done to my kidneys already. Dr. Reiff immediately referred me to one of the top vascular surgeons in the area. I had a renal bypass surgery for both of my kidneys. My surgery and recovery at this hospital was very successful, so successful that, for several years, I was completely off of my blood pressure medication. After the surgery, Dr. Reiff has been diligently monitoring and treating my disease. His care has brought great trust to my family’s heart. Now, I come in monthly for infusions that prevent the inflammation from spreading and I receive regular care from the compassionate staff here. My mom is so proud of how I am doing and is really grateful for the treatment of my doctor, Dr. Andreas Reiff. Jinhua's Mom Tells Her StoryWhen Ashley got sick, we didn’t know what was wrong with her. She just passed out. So we took her to the hospital in China and they told us that she had a very rare disease that, in Chinese is called by a very different name, but here is called Takayasu’s Arteritis.
Then, I came to this country and brought my daughter to live with me and took her to the doctors here. At first we stumbled together a few times because the doctors didn’t understand what I was trying to tell them I had learned about her disease in China. I got a referral to Dr. Rieff for Jinhua right away and, after that, everything went really well. Dr. Rieff immediately began taking very good care of my daughter. He helped her get a renal bypass surgery which was successful. And he has been taking care of her ever since. Now, she is a straight-A student in her second year at the University of Southern California studying architecture and Dr. Rieff is still taking good care of her. I can tell you that, without Dr. Rieff’s help, this would not have been possible. I am so happy and feel blessed that Children's Hospital Los Angeles is here to help my daughter. Jinhua's Story According to Dr. Reiff
At the time that Jinhua was diagnosed, her disease was already very advanced. The kidney to her left artery was 100% closed due to the disease process, and she had very advanced inflammation in the main stem artery of the aorta below her diaphragm. While in China, Jinhua’s doctors had proposed that they be allowed to take a vein from Jinhua’s leg and transplant it to provide a kidney bypass from the place that the main artery stem was in tact to her kidneys. In China, Jinhua’s mom refused the surgery. But, without any medications that culd prevent her disease from spreading, Jinhua's disease continued to progress. By the time I met Jinhua and began overseeing her care, she had no open aorta below her diaphragm, so the damage had been quite extensive. Now, for most people this would represent a very real threat to their lives, but in Jinhua’s case because Takayasu’s is such a slow-moving disease, her body responded by finding other ways to do it’s own circulation bypass. So all of the blood flow for her lower extremities is provided from her intestinal arteries, making her anatomy more difficult. The other thing that we found that was really great for Jinhua was the fact that her left kidney had a tiny flicker of life left still. This is great news because the kidneys are really crucial for the control of blood pressure. The renal hormones give the body a lot of information about how to manage its blood pressure. If we could preserve both of her kidneys, we could do much more to help her body maintain its own blood pressure without having to give her aggressive medication to prevent her from having a stroke. So, when the family met with me, I suggested exactly the same procedure that had been suggested 8 years earlier for Jinhua. This time, Yue Ming was much more confident in our medical system to provide the procedure successfully for her daughter, so I referred Jinhua to my colleague, Dr. Weaver, chief of vascular surgery at the University of Southern California to provide the renal bypass surgery to save her left kidney. After the renal bypass surgery, we continued to provide care for Jinhua because she still had active disease. We tried several different fairly aggressive therapies but none of the standard treatments proved effective. After a while we decided to try an experimental biologic drug that was newly on the market and hadn’t yet been established as being beneficial with children with Takayasu’s. Thankfully, she responded well to the experimental drug and her inflammatory activity was halted. Now, she just comes to see us once each month for her infusion to make sure that her inflammation remains low. Considering the advanced degree of her disease when we first met, Jinhua, I think she is doing quite well. She’s feeling well and she’s enrolled in the School of Architecture at USC and, from what I hear, is doing great there. Divisional ExpertiseThe majority of healthcare institutions in the United States will see, at most, one or two kids a year with Jinhua's condition. By contrast, our Division of Rheumatology follows 25 kids with this disease. Because of the number of patients we see with this rare disease, next year a fellow will join us to study this rare disease. This study will be the first research protocol to follow long-term outcomes of Takayasu's Arteritis. You Can Be a Hero for Patients Like Jinhua
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The hospitals in China told me that my daughter would not get better and they told me that I probably would not have her past age 10 years of age. I was so frightened and did not know what to do. 