THOUSANDS of people have tried to become stem cell donors in a record-breaking bid to save the life of a 5-year-old boy with cancer. Oscar Saxelby-Lee, from Worcester, the U.K., inspired a total of 4,855 people to go to a testing drive over the weekend to see if they were a match. Doctors say the schoolboy has just three months to find a donor from whom they can take blood cells to treat Oscar’s acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). He has already had chemotherapy since being diagnosed in December, but will need more aggressive treatment in order to overcome the disease. Oscar’s parents first became concerned when they noticed unexplained bruising on their son’s body, and in December they were told he had ALL. The family is now in a race against time to find someone who can donate blood stem cells — they say his chances of survival will “severely diminish” if a donor isn’t found within three months. And crowds of people turned up to an event at Pitmaston Primary School in Worcester, where Oscar is in reception class, over the weekend to see if they could be a match. The charity that will test the swabs, DKMS, said its previous record for a single event was 2,200 people — meaning Oscar’s more than doubled that. Oscar’s teacher Sarah Keating said, “I’ve been teaching for 20 years and I’ve never had a child go through something like this. “You hear about children getting cancer and you think ‘that’s dreadful,’ then you move on. In this case we haven’t moved on, we will fight this.” ALL is a rare illness and only affects around 650 people in the U.K. each year, around half of whom are children. It is a fast-growing, aggressive cancer that causes large numbers of underdeveloped white blood cells to be released from diseased bone marrow. These blood cells continue to spread and cause symptoms like tiredness, difficulty breathing, pale skin, fever, and bone and joint pain. Oscar has had 20 blood transfusions and four weeks of chemotherapy. Oscar’s teaching assistant Laura Senter, 22, said his diagnosis came as a shock to their class because his illness developed so quickly. She said, “I saw him before Christmas and he was his usual happy-go-lucky self. “It’s a nightmare for this to happen. You can’t really do anything about it, it’s heart-breaking. “We have gone into action mode to try and find a donor.” Volunteers lined up outside in the rain and took over two of the school’s halls for the weekend, handing out swabs and completing donor registration forms. Scientists will try to find a donor whose blood cells have a similar structure to Oscar’s so his body will accept them if they are transplanted. (SD-Agencies) |