ARMENIAN BONE MARROW REGISTRY SEARCHES FOR MARROW DONORS

Whittier Daily News
April 7, 2010 Wednesday
(California)

GLENDALE – A series of bone-marrow drives will be held throughout Los
Angeles this month to bolster the Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry
and find a match for a 4-year-old Pennsylvania girl.

The coast-to-coast search for a match for Charlotte Conybear will
include the Armenian community in Glendale and beyond.

Charlotte has aplastic anemia, a disorder in which the body’s bone
marrow doesn’t create new blood cells.

She is a quarter Armenian from her mother’s side. Armenians’ genetic
makeup is distinctive because they are less likely to marry outside
their ethnic group, said Frieda Jordan, founder and president of the
decade-old Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry.

"She could be a poster child for the need for more names in the
registry, but she’s not going to be our first or last patient,"
Jordan said. "We have hundreds of patients who are waiting for a
compatible match."

There are 50,000 names in the registry, but Jordan said more may be
added after a drive Wednesday at Glendale Memorial Hospital.

Ellen Conybear said Charlotte was diagnosed with aplastic anemia last
year after she and husband, Jeff, noticed dozens of little bruises
on their daughter’s shins.

After a biopsy, doctors found that her marrow didn’t have as many
cells as it should.

"They told us it looks like her bone marrow is failing," Conybear
said. "The marrow won’t recover without treatment."

If a match is found, the potential donor will undergo a minor procedure
to harvest healthy stem cells, Jordan said.