Cure for Kethan: October 2012

About Kethan

Ten-year-old Kethan was first diagnosed with leukemia (ALL) in 2006 at the age of four. He beat it twice but now it’s back for a third time. His doctors say his best hope for survival is a bone marrow transplant. The problem is finding a donor match. Kethan is of South Asian descent and Asian donors only make up seven percent of the bone marrow donor database.

Because the markers used in matching are inherited, patients are more likely to match someone from their own race or ethnicity. Adding more donors from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to the database increases the likelihood that all patients will find the match they need.

Since no match has been found, Kethan’s doctors are having to move forward with an alternative treatment because of no match. Unfortunately, there are thousands of stories similar to Kethan’s. Please register as a bone marrow donor and help improve the statistics for finding a bone marrow match.

So, what happens if you are a match? Once you are registered, you are in the database until your 61st birthday and could be matched at any time. Please go to www.getswabbed.org to understand more about this process and what it entails.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Here is a message from Kethan's mom:

"Hi everyone!

Today is 52 days post-transplant, and I am happy to say that Kethan is doing well. Last Wednesday, we did another Bone Marrow aspiration/biopsy to check his graft status. They told me that he is currently one hundred per cent donor!! His overall counts are recovering slowly. They say that his marrow has seen so much chemo over the last 6 years, they are not surprised by this. His counts have stabilized, and in fact he has not needed any transfusions in 3 weeks. So, the journey may be slow, and long, but we are going in the right direction ...., and hopefully closer to home."