Diego: A Survivor's Story
Before a transplant cured her 3-year-old son, Diego, of acute
lymphocytic leukemia, Georgette Lara, Diego's mother, admits to focusing on
"petty things." (Don't all honest parents?)
"Now I come home and I see his little trucks and I love it
because I know he is here. It brings joy to my heart," says Georgette.
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| Diego Lara |
Diego's recovery is a miracle in large part because doctors were
able to find a unit of umbilical cord blood that matched his tissue type. His
Hispanic heritage made locating one a less certain proposition.
Tissue types are inherited, so marrow and blood cell matches most
often come from donors of similar racial and ethnic heritage. The greater the
numbers of ethnic and racial cord blood units on the National Marrow Donor
Program® (NMDP) Registry, the better the chances are of finding a matching
unit.
Since the NMDP Registry began listing cord blood units in 2000,
donations of diverse ethnic and racial cord blood units have not kept pace with
the growing need. To increase the likelihood that patients of all racial and
ethnic backgrounds can find an appropriate match, the NMDP has stepped up its
appeal to new parents from the under-represented groups, including the Hispanic
population, to donate the blood from the umbilical cords of their newborn
babies.
In a special recruitment project in 2002 led by the NMDP and
supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration, the number of
cord blood units added to the NMDP Registry increased across all ethnic and
racial groups: 12 percent for Blacks and African Americans; 35 percent for
Asians, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders; 39 percent for Hispanics;
and 7 percent for multiple race. As a result, the composition of the diverse
ethnic and racial cord blood units listed on the NMDP Registry grew by nearly
22 percent - from 7,400 to 9,000.
The benefit of having the additional cord blood units on the
registry became apparent during the project. The newly listed units were
requested at a fast rate for the more precise level of typing, called
"confirmatory typing." Also underscoring the importance of focused recruitment
efforts was the finding that the number of cord blood units collected that were
used in actual transplants was double the number from the existing registry.
When Diego was first diagnosed and did not respond to standard
chemotherapy, his El Paso oncologist called the Cook Children's Hospital
transplant center in Fort Worth, to discuss the possibility of a transplant for
Diego.
The availability of a matching cord blood unit and the recognition
on the part of doctors that they should be ready to go to transplant quickly
helped save Diego's life. Today, with a growing 4-year-old, Georgette and
Eleazar, Diego's father, dare not take anything for granted. Nor would they
want to.
"We see Diego in a different way. It is a joy every day to be with
him," Georgette says.
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