Children with gut failure could be offered a life-saving bone marrow transplant in a world first for British hospitals.

The treatment was first given at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London as Michael Wenman, then five, faced death after an overactive immune system destroyed his digestive tract.

Michael, now a healthy 12-year-old, had to be fed intravenously and suffered constant pain until he became the first child in the world to be given bone marrow for a gut problem.

The last-chance treatment was so successful that his younger brother, Matthew, then four, was offered the same treatment when he showed similar symptoms.

Matthew, now nine, has also returned to a normal life.

The brothers, from Godalming in Surrey, are two of 10 success stories from Great Ormond Street which, from April next year, will offer bone marrow transplants as what doctors describe as a possible "cure" for children with gut failure.

Great Ormond Street will be able to treat six children a year with a bone marrow transplant and Newcastle General Hospital, which is working with Great Ormond Street, will offer the treatment to four children a year.

Dr Neil Shah, consultant paediatric gastroenterologist at Great Ormond Street, said the transplant offered a last chance for children who could only be fed intravenously by TPN (total parenteral nutrition).

He said the stem cells in the marrow seemed to mend the damaged gut and correct the initial imbalance with the immune system.

"We think it homes in on the gut and repairs it. I think these stem cells home in on bad areas and start to change into the cells that are needed," he said.

"We also think it repairs the immune system that was the difficulty in the first place."

Dr Shah said the transplant could be seen "as a cure rather than a way of controlling the condition".

Dr Shah said a transplant was only suitable for children suffering from a rare type of gut failure that does not respond to conventional treatments and is not without risks.

Professor Andrew Cant, lead consultant in paediatric immunology and infectious diseases at Newcastle General Hospital, said nine children had been treated there, eight successfully.

Dr Paul Veys,director of bone marrow transplants at Great Ormond Street, said: "This is an exciting new development which promises to offer real benefit to children with such debilitating disease."