Charlie gets new appetite for life after rare transplant

A nine-year-old girl can eat pizza and ice cream for the first time after having a rare transplant.

Charlie Cronin was given a new small bowel after suffering intestinal failure and a swollen stomach. Doctors feared she would die before the age of 15 without it.

This means she no longer has to stick to her restricted diet of fish, vegetables and salad. Charlie, from Bracknell, had the treatment at King's College Hospital and was cared for at Great Ormond Street. The hospitals have joined forces to look after children needing small bowel transplants and she was the first to benefit.

Charlie was fed with a tube in her arm for 18 months before the surgery. Her mother Kelly, 25, said: "The change in Charlie was almost immediate. She has a massive personality, which my husband and I are only now starting to see."

Charlie was discharged from hospital last month and plans to go back to school next year.