An eight-year-old Cheshire girl with a rare degenerative disease has become one of the first to receive a pioneering new treatment that will attempt to save her eyesight.
Amelia Carroll, from Poynton near Stockport, was diagnosed with CLN2 Batten disease – an incurable and fatal condition that affects roughly around 30-50 children in the UK – when she was just two.
The disease is caused by a change in a gene that is responsible for making a specific enzyme in the nervous system, and it results in seizures, a gradual decline in a child’s ability to walk, speak and see, as well as progressive dementia.
Amelia’s 11-year-old brother Ollie also has the same condition, yet has sadly already lost his eyesight.
“We have watched our son Ollie go blind, and now the same is starting to happen to Amelia,” mother Lucy Carroll explained, which is why her and her husband Mike decided to contribute to a fundraising campaign together with families of other children affected by the disease alongside the Battens Disease Family Association (BDFA) to help fund a world-first trail of a groundbreaking new treatment at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).
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Over £200,000 was raised through the campaign, and clinicians and researchers at GOSH and ICH say the treatment programme has the potential to transform the quality of life for children living with CLN2 Batten disease.
Amelia became one of the first children in the world to receive the treatment, and is said to already be responding to it “perfectly”, CheshireLive reports.
For the past two years, enzyme replacement therapy has been used to help prevent neurological deterioration in children with CLN2 disease. The drug, called Brineura, was first approved for use on the NHS in 2019 and is administered directly into the brain by a regular infusion.
It has shown to restore enzyme activity and slow the onset of disability.
However, this infusion into the brain does not prevent children going blind, as the enzyme cannot cross the blood-retina barrier, and this means that the nerves in the eye cannot function and vision is lost, which is why clinicians and researchers at GOSH and ICH are trying a the treatment to prevent the onset of blindness instead.
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To do this, GOSH said they are using the tiny amount of the drug leftover from the brain infusion and injecting it directly into the back of the eye.
The 18-month treatment trail – which is said to be being given on a compassionate use basis – hopes to prevent eyesight deterioration in children by providing the enzyme that the nerves in the back of the eye need to function.
Ms Carroll said “to save a child’s sight would be incredible”, and if it does indeed work, it would “make such a big difference to Amelia’s quality of life”.
“We just pray it works,” she added.
Speaking on the groundbreaking treatment trail, Professor Paul Gissen, from GOSH and the UCL GOS Institute of Child Health, said: “If successful, we hope our work can pave the way to saving the sight of more children with this disease to preserve their quality of life for as long as possible.”
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Amelia’s father, Mike Carroll, said the “amazing” nurses and doctors treating his daughter were “incredible”.
New endometriosis pill helping hundreds of women with ‘debilitating’ condition to be made available on NHS
Emily Sergeant
A groundbreaking new pill to help women with a ‘debilitating’ condition is set to be made available on the NHS.
The new daily pill for endometriosis – which has been approved for use on the NHS in England by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) – is called linzagolix, and will be available for those who have had previous treatment for endometriosis, working to manage any symptoms they may be experiencing.
Around 1.5 million women in the UK are thought to be currently living with endometriosis.
Endometriosis can cause chronic pain, heavy periods, and extreme tiredness when tissue similar to the womb lining grows elsewhere in the body.
A new daily pill for endometriosis has been approved for use on the NHS, and could help over a thousand women in England every year manage the symptoms of the debilitating condition.
As mentioned, linzagolix will be available specifically for patients whose previous medical or surgical treatments for endometriosis have been unsuccessful, and will be given alongside ‘add-back’ hormone therapy – which involves using low-dose hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to prevent menopause-like symptoms and bone loss.
This is the second take-at-home treatment to be approved to treat endometriosis on the NHS, and it’s thought that more than 1,000 women will benefit.
In clinical trials, linzagolix was shown to be successful in reducing painful periods and non-menstrual pelvic pain, compared with placebo, hence why it has been approved on the NHS by NICE.
“This is welcome news for women with endometriosis who haven’t found relief from previous therapies or surgery,” commented Dr Sue Mann, who is the National Clinical Director in Women’s Health for NHS England.
“It’s another treatment option which will help women take control of their health and better manage the symptoms of this often painful and debilitating condition.
“This is a testament to our ongoing commitment to improving treatment, care and quality of life for women.”
Featured Image – Heute
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Wigan woman jailed after hitting pedestrian in Fiat 500 while driving high on nitrous oxide ‘balloons’
Emily Sergeant
A young woman from Wigan has been handed jail time after hitting a pedestrian while driving high on nitrous oxide.
Louisa Tunstall was driving a white Fiat 500 towards the East Lancashire Road in Wigan at around 7pm on Friday 24 May 2024 – a time when traffic conditions were said to be ‘quiet’ – but Tunstall was under the influence of a now-banned drug, nitrous oxide, at the time of the incident, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) confirmed.
While driving under the influence, 19-year-old Tunstall veered to the left onto the pavement and collided with a 51-year-old woman pedestrian.
After striking the woman, the car then overturned and, in the process, caused serious life-changing injuries.
When questioned by police, Tunstall stated that she ‘took her eyes off the road’ to retrieve something in the footwell before knowing the car had flipped, but she also confirmed that she had just been out to purchase nitrous oxide to use that evening.
After obtaining witness accounts, investigating officers were able to track down nearby CCTV footable which showed Tunstall inhaling nitrous oxide through a balloon whilst driving, seconds before the collision occurred.
#JAILED | It's not a laughing matter when you get behind the wheel under the influence of drugs.
Now Louisa Tunstall has to spend over a year behind bars after inhaling nitrous oxide and causing serious injury in #Wigan last year.
— Greater Manchester Police (@gmpolice) May 14, 2025
Further investigation by GMP’s Forensic Vehicle Examination Unit examined the Fiat 500 and confirmed that no defects were found on the car to contribute towards the collision.
Still to this day, the victim says she is trying to recover from the injuries sustained to her leg that will prevent her from continuing life as she did before.
“The incident is still very raw when I think about it,” the victim explained in her impact statement released by GMP. “I become upset when I think at everything which has been taken away from me and the ongoing affect it has had and continues to have on my daily life.”
GMP says it’s seeing the use of nitrous oxide being a factor in incidents they attend increasing year on year.
Nitrous oxide, also known as ‘laughing gas’, is reported to produce euphoria, relaxation, dizziness, giggling or laughing fits, impaired judgement, and occasionally dissociation and hallucinations – which GMP says affects reaction time and and is ‘likely lead to impairment’ in driving performance, particularly when faced with an unexpected or hazardous situation.
Tunstall appeared at Bolton Crown Court this week, and has been sentenced to one year and eight months imprisonment for having possession of a Class C drug, driving under the influence of drugs, and causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
Alongside being jailed, she was also disqualified from driving for two years and eight months, and has been ordered to take an extended test when she is released.
Emily Sergeant -
14th January 2022 
