To The Editor: College Helps Mom With Rare Cancer Seek Donor

To the Editor:

St. Thomas Aquinas College held a stem cell/bone marrow drive to benefit a 49-year-old local wife and mother Tuesday. Andrea was diagnosed with a very rare form of Leukemia 2 months ago. Because of her Greek ethnicity, it has been difficult for Andrea to find a match—there simply aren’t enough Greek donors.

However, this treatment is her only chance to beat the blood cancer.

Unfortunately, Andrea’s story is not unique.

• More than 170,000 Americans are diagnosed with a blood cancer each year.
• Every year more than 14,000 patients in need of a blood stem cell donation search globally for an unrelated matching donor.
• There is especially a need for ethnic donors, solely due to the under-representation of minority groups on the national registry.
• Children are the group most widely affected by leukemia and a blood marrow transplant may be their only hope for a second chance at life.

St. Thomas Aquinas College paired with DKMS (Be The Match), the largest and most experienced bone marrow donor drive center in the world—they have registered over 10 million potential donors worldwide leading to 84,000 patients receiving second chances at life.

Potential donors swabbed the inside of their cheeks and DKMS sent it to their lab hoping that one of those samples was a match for Andrea or one of the thousands of other patients waiting.

This event was not open to the public because of the school’s covid protocol, but anyone interested in getting swabbed can text SWAB4ANDREA to the number 61474 or scan the QR code below.

You must be between the ages of 18-40 to participate because NKDS has found that donors between those ages lead to the most successful transplants. 80% of the time, doctors will request donors to donate stem cells through a blood draw proving technology has come a long way in this life-saving field.

Erin Wiese