2004

8-Year-Old Girl Meets Life-Saving Donor for First Time

Georgetown University Hospital Physician Keynotes NMDP Donor-Recipient Meeting at Intercultural Cancer Council's 9th Biennial Symposium in Washington, DC

Monday, March 22, 2004

WASHINGTON, DC – Janea Drummond of Felton, Calif., received a note recently from an 8-year-old Japanese girl living in Ohio.

"You are my best friend," Sayaka Terada wrote to the person she has never met but owes her the gratitude for a life-saving peripheral blood stem cell transplant facilitated by the National Marrow Donor Program" (NMDP) in February 2001 at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

The two will meet for the first time Friday, March 26, 2004, during the Patient Empowerment breakfast of the Intercultural Cancer Council 9th Biennial Symposium on "Minorities, the Medically Underserved & Cancer" at the Omni Shoreham. Tamarro Taylor, MD, attending physician, Bone Marrow Transplant Program at Georgetown University Hospital, will be the keynote speaker at the "Gift of Life" presentation and introduce Terada and Drummond.

Sayaka is a healthy, active second grade student at Holy Angels School in Sidney, Ohio, fully recovered from the Fanconi anemia that almost claimed her life more than three years ago, until Drummond accepted the phone call that would make a life-saving difference to Sayaka.

Drummond, who was born in Chicago of a Chinese mother and Japanese father, joined the NMDP Registry in 1996 after her mother-in-law called and told her about a 2-year-old girl whose parents were making a plea for marrow or blood stem cell donors.

"I felt like I owed something -- things have been good for me," said Drummond, 48, co-owner of an electrical repair company with her husband. "I wanted to make a difference in someone's life."

In December 2000, the NMDP Network's center -- the American Red Cross Blood Bank of Alameda in Contra Costa, Calif. -- called Drummond to let her know she had been identified as a potential match for a patient.

"It was a few days before Christmas and I needed time to think," Drummond said. "I thought of what Sayaka must be going through. I knew I had to do it. I am in awe of it all when I heard of the process she was going through. I am happy I made the decision to donate."

The NMDP works diligently to improve access to transplant, especially for diverse racial and ethnic groups. The increased number and diversity of volunteers and the advancements in tissue typing technology have greatly improved the likelihood of a patient finding at least one HLA-matched donor. Despite this success, Black and African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander and Hispanic and Latino patients face a greater challenge in finding matched donors than Caucasian patients. The NMDP continues to work to increase the chances of finding a match for all patients.

Drummond made her donation Feb. 26, 2001, at Stanford Hospital and Clinics in Stanford, Calif. A courier flew the blood cells to Cincinnati, where Dr. Richard Harris performed the transplant on Feb. 27, 2001.

"I knew nothing about Sayaka," Drummond said. "All I was told was that it was a 5-year-old girl who needed the transplant. I can't wait to meet her. I will cry and hug, hug, hug."

Says Drummond, "I have two sons of my own, and now I have a daughter."

Or, as Sayaka would put it: A new best friend.

The National Marrow Donor Program"

The National Marrow Donor Program" (NMDP) is a nonprofit organization that is committed to its mission to extend and improve life through innovative cell therapies. The NMDP has facilitated more than 18,000 transplants throughout the world for patients with life-threatening diseases such as leukemia and aplastic anemia, as well as certain immune system and genetic disorders. The NMDP offers searching patients who do not have suitable family donors a single point of access for all three types of blood stem cells used in transplantation: marrow, peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood. Through its extensive U.S. and international Network, the NMDP maintains the world's largest and most diverse Registry of 5.2 million potential volunteer donors, including more than 30,000 cord blood units. Matching donors to patients is only part of the NMDP's life-saving mission. The organization also provides support for patients and physicians and conducts research studies aimed at increasing opportunities for and improving the outcomes of cellular transplant therapies. For more information about the NMDP, call 1-800-MARROW-2 or visit online at www.marrow.org.

Intercultural Cancer Council

The Intercultural Cancer Council (ICC) promotes policies, programs, partnerships, and research to eliminate the unequal burden of cancer among racial and ethnic minorities and medically underserved populations in the United States and its associated territories. Initiated in 1987, the Biennial Symposium (March 24-28) series provides the stage on which the ICC spotlights the issue of disproportionate cancer incidence, morbidity and mortality in minority and medically underserved populations in the United States and its associated territories. The Symposium brings together those who represent all aspects and perspectives of the disease in collaboration with the leadership and front-line personnel from the affected communities. The purpose is to engage in a dialogue that explores issues, finds solutions, and makes recommendations for the various complex problems related to cancer.

Georgetown University Hospital

Georgetown University Hospital was founded in 1898 to promote health through education, research and patient care. This mission has been shaped by and reflects Georgetown's Catholic, Jesuit identity and heritage. With a 609-licensed bed hospital and 1,100 physicians, Georgetown University Hospital's clinical services represent one of the largest healthcare delivery networks in the area. Georgetown University Hospital is consistently ranked among the best in the nation by U.S. News and World Reports. Some of the specialty areas in which we've been ranked in recent years includes: Cancer, Cardiology, Endocrinology, Gastroenterology, Geriatrics Gynecology, Kidney Disease, Neurology / Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Otolaryngology, Pulmonology, Rheumatology and Urology.

The Lombardi Comprehensive Care Center is the only facility in the Washington, D.C. area designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a Comprehensive Care Center. Georgetown's Transplant Institute is ranked among the best in the Mid-Atlantic region by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients for liver transplant outcomes and is one of few centers in the country to provide living-donor liver transplants. And, Georgetown Neurosciences is the first on the East Coast and the sixth in the nation to offer the CyberKnife, the latest in stereotactic radiosurgery to treat tumors and lesions of the brain, neck and spine.