Asian stem cell donors are rare in Quebec

MONTREAL Two months since she suffered a relapse of leukemia, Mai Duong still hasnt found a compatible stem cell donor, but her friends havent lost hope.

A dozen volunteers from S.O.S. Mai and Hma-Qubec staff registered close to 200 people in a swab drive during the 2014 Dragon Boat Challenge at the Olympic Basin last weekend. Since July 1, Mais friends and family, as well as members of the Vietnamese community, have helped to sign up around 2,000 potential donors, half of whom are Asian.

Of Vietnamese origin, Duong, 34, has been struggling to find a match because of the lack of Asian donors on Quebecs registry and worldwide.

Only 0.5 per cent of donors in the province are of Asian descent, according to Hma-Qubec.

Christiane Rochon, a colleague and friend of Duongs for almost 10 years, volunteered to collect swabs on Saturday. When youre sick, I think everyone should have the same chances of recovering, she said, but its not like that right now. If youre not white, youre doomed.

Hma-Qubec has been searching international registries to arrange an umbilical cord or bone marrow stem cell transplant for Duong. The challenge with Mai is that Vietnam doesnt have its own registry and its the same situation in countries nearby, explained Hma-Qubec spokesperson Laurent Paul Mnard.

There are 50,000 donors listed in Quebecs registry and 24 million around the world.

Recent findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggest the odds of finding a donor for Duong have become a little more encouraging, Mnard added. The study shows a Vietnamese person needing a transplant has a 42-per-cent chance of finding one in the U.S. registry. The likelihood of finding a match for a Caucasian was 75 per cent.

Duongs friends say the need to find a donor remains urgent. She desperately needs the transplant. Theres no other way, Rochon said. They can wait a few weeks for a very good donor, but this cant wait until Christmas.

To learn more about Duongs situation, visit http://www.sosmai.com. To find out how to join the Quebec registry, go to the stem cell section of http://www.hema-quebec.qc.ca

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Asian stem cell donors are rare in Quebec