Toronto woman seeks bone marrow transplant from donor of Chinese descent

A bone marrow agency is stepping up its campaign to find a match for a Toronto woman of Chinese descent suffering from leukemia.

Carolyn Tam, 37, was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia 18 months ago and received chemotherapy. However, one month ago she relapsed. Tam has received a second round of chemotherapy, and is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant.

"It's a fatal disease," Dr. Joseph Wong, founder and chair of the Elizabeth Lue Bone Marrow Foundation, told CBC News Tuesday. A bone marrow transplant would allow Tam to rebuild her supply of disease-fighting white blood cells.

He urged members of the Chinese community worldwide to come forward and add their names to the list of potential donors in the global bone marrow registry. "We are appealing to all Chinese around the world," said Wong.

He added that although the success rate of finding a match for Caucasians is 75 per cent to 80 per cent due to the large number of registered Caucasian potential donors, the number of Chinese registrants is only around 200,000, leading to a success rate of only five per cent.

The foundation is zeroing on four cities with large Chinese populations: San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver and Hong Kong, with four clinics that will take place in Toronto this weekend. Wong said younger people aged 17 to 40 are the best possibilities, although people who are older than 40 are also welcome to add their names as potential donors and will be considered.

He stressed that the test to see if a person is a match is simple, involving only a quick swab of the inside of one's mouth which is tested for DNA. An individual's identity is kept confidential.

For people interested in offering a DNA sample, Wong advises they check out savecarolyn.com.