Story Photos
 David Maligro and his wife, Myrna, hold the marrow donor registration kit. Maligro is working to raise awareness of the need for people to register. Greg Ebersole / The Daily News
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Grandson's plight fuels Longview man's drive to recruit bone marrow donors
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 11:30 PM PDT
By Cheryll A. Borgaard
Printable version
E-mail this articleThere are 7 million people registered in the United States as bone marrow donors. For David Maligro, that’s not enough.
Maligro, a certified physician’s assistant at Longview Orthopedic Association, is recruiting people in Southwest Washington to become bone marrow donors. A drive he held May 18 for the National Marrow Donor Program registry — the country’s only marrow registry for leukemia victims — netted 30 new potential donors.
Maligro, 59, has a compelling interest in the registry: His grandson, 12-year-old Josh Maligro of Brentwood, Calif., was diagnosed in November 2006 with acute myelogenous leukemia, a rare form of cancer.
“After six months of intensive chemotherapy, Josh was deemed to be in remission,” Maligro said last week. “He enjoyed nine months of good health and was able to catch up with his classmates.”
But a routine follow-up showed that he’d had a relapse, and he went through another round of chemo in February, March and April. Now he’s awaiting a match for bone marrow or for cord blood, which comes from umbilical cords.
“Out of all the possible donors, including family members, there was no match for Joshua,” Maligro said. “There are actually very few matches within a family — only about 30 percent. It’s your best bet, but just because you’re a blood relative, it’s no guarantee. That’s why the registry is so important.”
A bone marrow transplant is a life-saving treatment for people with leukemia, lymphoma and many other diseases. Patients undergo chemotherapy and/or radiation to destroy their diseased marrow. Then a donor’s healthy blood cells are given directly into the patient’s bloodstream, where they can begin to function and multiply.
Maligro said his quest for more potential donors goes beyond Josh’s immediate needs, but to help all patients nationwide and locally, such as Hannah Wicken, a 9-year-old Robert Gray Elementary student recently diagnosed with leukemia.
“I checked to see how successful (the program) was in the state of Washington, and there seems to be a lack of drives,” he said. “There is nobody in charge of any drives.”
The steps to registering are simple: Participants fill out a confidential two-page form that includes some health history. Four inside-the-cheek swabs are taken with what looks like giant Q-tips (it’s painless — no blood or marrow is drawn). The swabs and paperwork are then forwarded to the registry.
People who agree to register are asked to donate $25 to help fund the DNA testing of the swabs, Maligro said. College students, firemen and policemen can register for free.
Maligro wants to have a monthly donor drive, though “I found out it’s not an easy sell for these drives, no matter how much publicity.” Now, his plan of attack is to address and meet with clubs, churches, businesses, schools or family gatherings.
“If they get 10 people or more to promise to sign up, I’ll schedule a time to meet,” he said, though with his full-time job, weekends are best. “I would like to do drives, rather than piecemeal (registries,)” he said. “But if a family is having a barbecue and there would be willing donors, I’d be there.”
He’s hoping businesses might subsidize their employees’ $25 cost.
Maligro said he also plans on being at the county fair, Go 4th and farmers markets.
Maligro said another frustration with not having a more extensive nationwide donor list is keeping existing registrars up to date.
“Fifty percent of the time, match donors are unable to be contacted, due to not updating contact information,” he said. “Of the remaining half that might have a match, 50 percent have developed medical conditions that now disqualify them from registering or they opt to not donate or follow through. So that leaves a very small number of people that might match.”
And at age 61, donors are removed from the data bases. “So there is a constant turnover and a constant need for donors all the time,” Maligro said.
Since the chance to find a match is nearly 1 in 300,000, most people registered likely won’t be contacted, according to the NMDP. However, should there be a match, there are two possible procedures to donate the needed marrow or stem cells.
A marrow collection is done in about 30 percent of the cases. The donor is given anesthesia and a needle is inserted into the hip bone and marrow is extracted. (One myth, according to NMDP, is that this procedure is very painful. Donors can expect to feel some soreness in their lower back, but most are back to their usual routine in a few days).
A Peripheral Blood Stem Cell collection (PBSC) is done about 70 percent of the time. Donors receive daily injections of a drug called filgastim for five days to increase the number of blood-forming cells. The blood is then drawn from the donor’s arm and circulated through a machine that removes blood-forming cells. The rest of the blood is returned to the donor in the other arm.
(St. John Medical Center will take blood samples, for example, of siblings who want to know if they’re a match, but the hospital does not analyze the results nor does it do marrow extraction or PBSC, spokesman Randy Querin said.)
Another option for leukemia patients like Josh is the use of umbilical cord blood.
“Donations in prenatal and pregnancy where women sign agreements for the umbilical cord blood at the time of delivery offers the more viable unadulterated stem cells — not to be confused with the controversial stem cell discussion,” Maligro stressed.
“I found out it’s not routine for an OB/GYN office or hospital to offer mothers the option,” he said. “We’re not talking about research cloning people. We’re talking about using it to save people like Josh.”
And that is what looks to be the most hopeful procedure for his grandson.
Though not a perfect match, there are two “close” cord matches where four of the six DNA criteria match Josh’s, one in Spain and one in Italy. He likely will begin treatment in the next week or so.
But in the meantime, his grandfather is going to continue to get the word out about being a marrow donor.
“I’ve got 170 more test kits just sitting around, waiting to be utilized and sent to the Marrow Foundation,” Maligro said. “I’d love to have to order more.”
Learn more
The National Marrow Donor Program helps people who need a life-saving marrow or blood cell transplant. “The program connects patients, doctors, donors and researchers to the resources they need to help more people live longer and healthier lives,” according to its Web site, www.marrow.org. More information also is available at (800) 654-1247.
National Marrow Donor Program registry guidelines
To be a member of the registry, you need to:
• Be between the ages of 18 and 60
• Be willing to donate to any patient in need
• Meet health guidelines
Donors of diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds are especially needed.
Health problems that may preclude you from being a donor:
• HIV or risk for HIV
• Hepatitis or risk for hepatitis
• Most forms of heart disease or cancer
• Insulin-dependent diabetes
• Diseases that affect blood clotting or bleeding
• Autoimmune/neurological disorders, such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis
• Severe obesity
Set up a drive
To arrange a bone marrow donor registration drive for your business, church, sports or civic group, call David Maligro at 423-4897 (home) or (360) 936-2608 (cell) or e-mail him at d.maligro@netzero.net.
To follow Josh Maligro’s journey, visit www.caringbridge.org/visit/joshuamaligro
Woodchuck wrote on May 28, 2008 6:45 AM:
I have respected your abilities and kindness for years in this community. Thank you for raising awareness about this important issue not only for your grandson, but for others in similar circumstances. "
Dingy wrote on May 28, 2008 9:31 AM:
2begood wrote on May 28, 2008 12:18 PM:
I want to commend you for your efforts.I registered in 1999 in Vancouver when a young girl named Leslie Zolbe was in need of a bone marrow transplant. More than 4700 people stood in line to sign up on the registry. Six months later my own son was diagnosed with Leukemia. The Zolbes are from Vancouver and if contacted, I am sure they could tell you how they were able to have such a successful Bone Marrow Drive. Unfortunately, Leslie passed away but I know that her Bone Marrow Drive has probably saved other lives. My son has fought Leukemia twice now and is still receiving treatments and it is people like you that gives us hope!
Nita Rudd "
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