Although Mt. Lebanon leukemia
patient Amy Katz has yet to find a bone marrow donor, two other
people might have found donors thanks to the efforts of her army of
volunteers.
A marrow donor drive in February has yielded two possible donors
for leukemia patients in a nationwide database. Of the 1,657 people
tested as potential donors, Ted Ford and Michael Rattie, both of Mt.
Lebanon, will undergo further tests to determine if their marrow
could be used for the patients, whose names and residences are
unknown.
"It's the next best news we could get," said Andrea Fitting, a
member of the steering committee of Amy's Army, a group testing
potential marrow donors for Amy and other cancer patients.
Ford and Rattie were both out of town and unavailable for comment
Thursday. Fitting said that Ford was a potential match for a
34-year-old man with chronic myelogenous leukemia, and Rattie is a
potential match for a 4-year-old boy with acute lymphoblastic
leukemia.
Amy, 11, was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia in
August. A drug regimen has kept the disease at bay but she still is
in search of a bone marrow donor. Members of her family have been
ruled out.
Amy's Army has been holding fund-raisers to defray the cost of
the donor testing, in which blood is drawn from potential donors and
tested for matches.
The next marrow drive will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 23 at
the Community Day School on Forward Avenue, Squirrel Hill.
Vince Guerrieri can be reached at vguerrieri@tribweb.com or
(412) 380-5607.