Donor search

[Wendy Beltrami]

Hi-
My son Grant was dx 12/4/98 with AA. His only sibling was not a match and there were no matches in the registry. Now, nearly 8 years later, a new donor search is underway. Thought you'd all be interested to hear about those results.
(By the way, we do not currently have plans for a BMT, but would like to have this donor info waiting in the wings)
The BMT doc was pretty confident (almost cocky) that they would be able to find a match even though I told them there was nothing in the registry in 1998

Well, they were pretty surprised when the search came back with no matches. They think there may be 8 possible 9/10 matches but they are now using words like "very challenging search" and "obscure markers". Interestingly enough, they asked if we had any Japanese heritage. We don't! Evidently Grant has some markers that statistically show up more often in people with Japanese ethnicity.

The search continues...

[Ruth Cuadra]

Wendy,

It's very encouraging that they can now identify some 9/10 matches for Grant. There are studies that show almost identical transplant results for patients with slightly mis-matched donors as those with fully matched donors. It does matter, of course, where the mis-match occurs.

There was only ever one match for me. I have a fairly standard Eastern European, Jewish background so I was sure my donor would be similar. She turned out to be from a Portuguese, Roman Catholic background. But, if you think about it, there were lots of Jews who went underground or escaped to the east from Spain/Portugal during the Inquisition. So, who knows? Maybe we really are related!

Does your family background include any groups that might have interacted with the Japanese population through travel or trade, even hundreds of years ago? This is a fascinating aspect of human genetics.

Regards,
Ruth