Statistics
Did you
know that leukemia accounts for one third of all children’s cancers? According to the American Cancer Society, in
1992 the eighth leading cause of cancer death among Native Americans in the
United States was leukemia.
The
National Cancer Institute estimates that in 1993, there were 29,000 new cases
of leukemia diagnosed, accounting for 2.5% of all new cancer cases that
year. Out of the diagnosed cases, 60%
were acute leukemia, the type of leukemia that rapidly progresses.
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Figure 1. Types of
leukemia found in children. Chronic
lymphocytic leukemia almost never occurs in children. Information obtained from the National
Cancer Institute, Cancerlit News.
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Since
the 1950’s advances in treatment for leukemia have contributed to increased
survival rates. The most significant advances occurred in acute lymphocytic
leukemia, one of the more common types of leukemia affecting children (Fig 1).
Before
the 1950’s there was no effective chemotherapy for acute lymphocytic leukemia,
and the procedure of a bone marrow transplant was not available until the
1970’s. The most dramatic increase in
survival rates for acute lymphocytic leukemia has occurred in children between
2 and 10; survival rates increased by 20 % from 1974 to 1988.
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Figure
2. The distribution of the volunteer potential donors in the NMDP registry as
of April 30, 2000. |
Medical
technology has advanced allowing us to gain ground in the fight against
leukemia. Although we have the technology to perform bone marrow transplants, a
problem remains in finding donors so we can cure people with leukemia.
Unfortunately, minorities account for only 25 % of registered donors in the
National Marrow Donor Program
Registry (NMDP).
As
of April 30, 2000, the total number of potential donors was 3,969,685. Figure 2 illustrates the distribution of
possible minority donors registered with the NMDP registry. American Indian/Alaska Natives account for
1.6 % of the registered donors in the NMDP registry. The number of transplant donors NMDP registry has doubled since
1995, but there is still a demand for minority donors.
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Figure 3. The distribution of the total NMDP
facilitated unrelated marrow transplants.
15.4% of the total have been minority transplants as of April 30,2000. |
With
so few minority donors, especially the few number of Native American donors,
there is a smaller chance for a Native American with leukemia to find a donor
match. As shown in figure 3, Native
Americans who have obtained a bone marrow transplant from the NMDP account for
only a very small fraction (0.5 %) of the total number of transplants. "While Caucasian patients searching
the registry have an 80 percent chance of finding a match... the odds of people
of other races locating a match is between 20 percent and 55 percent. The odds
for some patients, however, can be as low as one in a million," according
to one reporter, Lesley Farrey Pacey, a donor herself, whose marrow donation
saved the life of a 5 year-old boy.
Thousands of Native Americans die each year because they cannot find a
marrow donor, or like the Native American woman with leukemia, Shellie, they do
not find donor soon enough. This is the
reason it is so important for the NMDP to recruit more minority donors
including Native Americans.
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