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Leukemia patients linked to donors

 

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By Vince Guerrieri
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, May 7, 2004

Although Mt. Lebanon leukemia patient Amy Katz has yet to find a bone marrow donor, two other people might have found donors thanks to the efforts of her army of volunteers.

A marrow donor drive in February has yielded two possible donors for leukemia patients in a nationwide database. Of the 1,657 people tested as potential donors, Ted Ford and Michael Rattie, both of Mt. Lebanon, will undergo further tests to determine if their marrow could be used for the patients, whose names and residences are unknown.

"It's the next best news we could get," said Andrea Fitting, a member of the steering committee of Amy's Army, a group testing potential marrow donors for Amy and other cancer patients.

Ford and Rattie were both out of town and unavailable for comment Thursday. Fitting said that Ford was a potential match for a 34-year-old man with chronic myelogenous leukemia, and Rattie is a potential match for a 4-year-old boy with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Amy, 11, was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia in August. A drug regimen has kept the disease at bay but she still is in search of a bone marrow donor. Members of her family have been ruled out.

Amy's Army has been holding fund-raisers to defray the cost of the donor testing, in which blood is drawn from potential donors and tested for matches.

The next marrow drive will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 23 at the Community Day School on Forward Avenue, Squirrel Hill.

Vince Guerrieri can be reached at vguerrieri@tribweb.com or (412) 380-5607.

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