|
|
Robert Lopez-Lengowski
"We were vacationing in Montana in the summer of 1995,"
Kristin Lengowski, a physician and mother of four, said recently,
"when my oldest son Robert said: 'Mom, my jaw hurts.' Right
away we feared his cancer had returned."
Then nine years old, Robert Lopez-Lengowski
had already been through a lot. Only a year before, at the end of
his first basketball season, this vibrant, talkative boy had been
diagnosed with leukemia – acute myelogenous leukemia (AML),
to be exact. Within months after his diagnosis, Robert received
extensive chemotherapy and an autologous bone marrow transplant
(a transplant of his own stem cells, purged of cancer cells) –
at that time, the best choice for patients who had no matching related
donors and had no time to wait even as little as six months to find
an unrelated donor through marrow donor registries.
Now here he was, passing through the buttes of Montana, and his
jaw hurt.
After consulting with Dr. Will London, Robert's
pediatrician back home in North Carolina, Dr. Lengowski and her
husband, Dr. Marcelo Lopez-Claros, checked Robert into Duke University
Medical Center. That same night, Robert's oncologist, Dr. Joanne
Kurtzberg, offered the family three choices: do nothing, wait for
a marrow transplant from the NMDP, or try what was then a new procedure,
a transplant of cord blood from an unrelated donor.
"It took us three minutes to decide,"
Dr. Lengowski said. "Even if Robert survived the wait for a
marrow donor, his cancer would become more resistant to chemotherapy."
There was no doubt in his parents' minds: Robert would have a transplant
immediately, using cord blood collected, tested, typed and stored
by the New York Blood Center. When Dr. Kurtzberg submitted her request
to NYBC's Placental Blood Program (now the National Cord Blood Program), Dr. Pablo Rubinstein's staff
located two units that were suitable matches for Robert's tissue
type, one that matched very closely and another that matched not
quite as well. Whichever unit the family and their physician decided
to use, it could be available within days rather than months, one
of the advantages of banked cord blood. That the units were readily
available was important for Robert, given that he'd already had
one marrow transplant and his chances for survival were slim.
That the unit did not have to be perfectly
matched turned out to be just as important because the best matched
unit was not necessarily the best one for this young man. When NYBC's
Susan Mintzer, R.N., took the family medical history from the cord
blood donor's mother, she found that some family members had a mild inherited
blood disorder, spherocytosis. Examination of red blood cells from
the cord blood suggested that the cord blood donor had the disease
as well. Though the health risk posed was relatively minor, the
physicians chose – with the family's consent – the other
unit. "He recovered rapidly," Dr. Lengowski said. "In
just a few months he was out playing soccer, bald and skinny as
could be, but he didn't care. He was so determined to get his life
back." Robert's mother is certain that "research saved
my son's life."
And what does Robert say? Before his transplant,
he had allergies and was prone to colds. "But with his new
immune system," his mother said, "he gets sick far less often."
"You know, Mom," Robert said, "this new marrow is
a better match for me."
|
