My mom has MDS

[Tommy Espo]

Hello Everyone,

My mom was just diagnosed with MDS after a marrow biopsy. According to the test results her IPSS Score puts her in the Intermediate 1 catagory for risk. She has an appointment with a specialist and will have her tests redone soon. Our family has been reading everything we can find and it looks like my mother is a good candidate for a transplant. She's young (51) and has overall excellent health. We have been advised that it will take months to find out any donor database results and that we shouldn't get our hopes up. We are trying to be pro-active in our quest for a match which leads me here. I have a few questions and hopefully your group experience can guide me. Here is some information about my mom:

1. My mother is Costa Rican. She was adopted by an american family at the age of 12 weeks.

2. There is a high likelihood that she has a sibling living somewhere in Costa Rica.

My questions are regarding her ethnicity and the chances of a match:

A. Does the ethnicity of a perspective donor play a definative role in the likelihood of a match? We have a large Costa Rican community in our area and have considering bringing our quest to churches in the area. Is this worth while?

B. Are sibling matches normal? We have the means to hire someone to locate her brother in Costa Rica. Should we pursue this?

C. Does anyone have any suggestions for other websites that I can visit to pose these same questions?

I thank you all for your time and any help that you can provide.

Sincerely,

Tom Esposito
Westbury, NY

My mother was diagnosed with MDS 04/2008