Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 1, 1990 TAG: 9005010242
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium
The chances are 1 in 4 that rich umbilical cord blood, collected during a Caesarean delivery, will be compatible with the boy's tissue and can be used to save his life.
"My oldest son is not compatible," said Sancilio, 33. "So we're hoping the odds are with us. If his sister doesn't match, the odds of us finding a compatible donor jump to 1 in 20,000."
If the siblings are compatible, Michael may make medical history by becoming the first leukemia victim in the world to receive such a transplant to replace diseased bone marrow.
Sancilio and her husband, Tony, 35, who also have a 7-year-old son, Anthony, learned this spring that Michael has chronic myelogenous leukemia.
"I'm thankful Michael's young enough not to know what's going on," Sancilio said. "Anthony was complaining about all the attention his younger brother was getting, and I said to him, `You're lucky.' . . . Life is so precious."
Immediately after the girl is born today at Virginia Beach General Hospital, surgeons will double clamp the umbilical cord and cut between the clamps. Once the baby is safely removed, the severed cord, still connected to the placenta in the mother, will be milked of blood for two to three minutes.
Next, blood from the placenta will be removed with syringes. The biggest risk during collection is contamination with the mother's blood.
Blood and tissue samples will be put in plastic-foam containers and flown to Indiana and Duke universities. The family should know within a few days whether the two children are compatible.
"Now we're all on pins and needles waiting for this big day, . . . and hopefully the baby will match," said Michael's grandmother, Rachel Sancilio.
A week after Michael was diagnosed with the fatal blood disease, his grandmother read a March 29 newspaper article describing a child with fatal Fanconi's anemia who was saved by a cord blood transplant in Paris.
She called the pioneers of such transplants, Dr. Hal Broxmeyer, a professor of medicine at Indiana University, and Dr. Edward Boyse, a professor of immunology and microbiology at the University of Arizona, and was told the procedure could work for Michael. The doctors discovered that cord blood transplants can be used instead of bone marrow transplants to treat many blood disorders, including leukemia.
by CNB