My younger brother (a medical student, ironically) was diagnosed with leukemia, and he just started chemo.
A 25% chance of my being a viable donor seems worth the shot.
Tzu Chi, the one in Xindian has it on the fifth floor, same as obstetrics.
Hope your brother pulls through.
Good luck. OP. I hope you can help your brother.
Thanks, all. The doctors at his clinic (in Scottsdale, Arizona) insisted on sending me their own DIY kit. It’ll overnight here and I’ll overnight it back.
That said, I’ll stop at the Xindian location sometime this week. If their test is the mouth swab, too, it seems like a big oversight for long-time expat residents not to get that done here, especially since HLA types are strongly linked to ethnicity (and Caucasians like me are a minority in Asia).
A HLA test can be done easily in DNA testing labs. For most people there is no reason to do the test.
Taiwan has large HLA databases due to the craze for umbilical stem cell banking, but it’s only suitable for Asians, the chance of having a match for your brother is very slim outside of the west.
They’ll check all your family first, hopefully there’s a match. If not can do a search through the wider HLA database.
I was thinking more of non-Asian expats who would be seeking donors in similarly dire situations.
Tzu Chi is part of the worldwide HLA data bank.
I’ve completed my PBSC (Peripheral Blood Stem Cell) donation through apheresis, and my brother will receive them in a transplant next week.
All the best to you and your brother, ehopi.
He fully recovered, or at least he’s as fully recovered as doctors allow people in remission to say that they’re “fully recovered.” Also, he managed to complete his MD around the tail end of it.
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They fond the perfect donor for this very sick man.
Paul Edmonds is only the fifth-known person in the world confirmed to be in remission for both acute myelogenous leukemia and HIV, both potentially fatal illnesses.
Edmonds received bone marrow and blood stem cells from the donor with the rare homozygous CCR5 delta mutation in 2019. The process left his bone marrow and blood stem cells completely replaced by those of his donor.
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