List of diseases

Make-a-Wish®Austria’s mission is to fill and enrich the lives of children suffering from life-threatening diseases with hope, strength and joy.

The guiding principle on whether a child is entitled to wish fulfillment is that the child’s illness/condition should be classified as “life -threatening” at the time of the request for wish fulfillment. This list of diseases should serve as a guideline. Diseases and medical conditions are given as examples.

ONCOLOGY – all forms of cancer that severely restrict the quality of life such as:

  • Any form of acute and chronic leukemia with chemotherapy
  • Solid malignant tumors
  • Brain tumor

HEMATOLOGY – chronic diseases that require transfusions or other chronic therapies such as:

  • Aplastic Anemia
  • Thalassemia major
  • Sickle cell anemia with complications(cardiac, renal)

IMMUNODEFICIENCY DISEASES, such as:

  • Congenital immune deficiency with known limitations of life expectancy, or required bone marrow transplantation
  • Acquired immunodeficiency with symptoms (HIV infection with symptoms or significant immunosuppression)

METABOLIC DISEASES, such as:

  • Severe Diabetes
  • Gaucher’s disease with progressive neurological involvement, and other similar diseases

NEUROLOGY, such as:

  • Any brain or spinal cord tumor
  • Any progressive or degenerative neurological disease
  • Any progressive or degenerative myopathy such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy or any other form
  • Any serious congenital diseases, such as Apert syndrome
  • Severe epilepsy with difficult to correct or recurrent epileptic seizures

CARDIOLOGY – all diseases with heart failure or persistent cyanosis, such as:

  • Dilated cardiomyopathy with heart failure
  • Uncorrectable and palliative congenital heart defects with heart failure or cyanosis
  • Eisenmenger syndrome (severe pulmonary hypertension due to congenital heart disease)
  • Patients with transplantation, either pre-transplantation stage, or with complications after surgery

GASTROINTESTINAL TRACT, such as:

  • Congenital Atresia Of The Bile Ducts
  • Severe Short Bowel Syndrome
  • End-stage liver failure
  • Patients with transplantation, for example, liver, intestines, pancreas; either before transplantation, or with complications after surgery

KIDNEY, such as:

  • End-stage renal failure
  • Patients with transplantation, either pre-transplantation stage, or with complications after surgery

LUNGS, such as:

  • Complex severe cystic fibrosis
  • Complex severe bronchiectasis
  • Patients with transplantation, either pre-transplantation stage, or with complications after surgery

TRAUMA, such as:

  • Severe burns such as third-degree burns that affect more than 30% of the entire body surface
  • Polytrauma with permanent disability

Do you know a child who has one of these diseases, or you are not sure? Register here: