Tonight | 7NEWS Spotlight on Channel 7: Tilly’s miracle follows nine-year-old Tilly Page, whose gene-therapy treatment changed the course of childhood dementia.
Michael Usher meets Tilly and her family as the special investigation examines whether the breakthrough could help in the wider fight against dementia.
Tilly’s story places a complex medical development in an Australian family’s lived experience, while also asking why the treatment remains out of reach for other children facing the same condition.
A breakthrough that changed Tilly’s life
Doctors diagnosed Tilly with childhood dementia when she was three months old. Her parents, Kate and Lachlan Page, were told she had only a few years to live.
A gene-therapy trial changed her outlook. Now nine, Tilly’s family describes her as full of energy and “miraculous in her averageness”.
The report follows the treatment that changed Tilly’s life and explores what it may mean for other families.
Why access remains the central question
Forty children worldwide remain in the trial while researchers continue their monitoring and the treatment awaits regulatory approval.
Other families cannot yet access the therapy, leaving them in a race against time. The investigation looks at the barriers between a promising treatment and children who may need it.
7NEWS Spotlight Investigates: Tilly’s miracle airs tonight, Sunday 13 September at 8.40pm on Channel 7 and 7plus.
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