Bone marrow transplant saves life for indigenous child with leukemia in Mexico

Mérida (Mexico), Mar 25 An indigenous child from Quintana Roo, in southeastern Mexico, diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukemia received a new lease of life thanks to a bone marrow transplant performed by specialists at the “Dr. José Eleuterio González” Hospital of the University of Nuevo León. The 4-year-old boy received the first hematopoietic cell transplant among unrelated Mexicans (without family ties) more than 100 days ago and is “in clear recovery,” explains Efe Amaro Sánchez Larrayoza, liaison with Be The Match Latin America Transplant Centers. “It's a great success story, because the little patient is already living his normal life and will be able to fulfill his dreams thanks to the medical team and managers of the Mexican Association for Aid to Children with Cancer (AMANC) who contacted Be The Match Mexico,” he shares. The story began in 2021 when the boy's family living in an indigenous community took him to the General Hospital in Chetumal, where the picture looked bad: a diagnosis of lymphoblastic leukemia, few resources and no compatible family members to donate his bone marrow. However, the union between AMANC Quintana Roo, medical teams and Be The Match — which began the search for an unrelated donor, since no family member was genetically compatible — made hematopoietic cell transplantation possible. Be The Match Mexico facilitated the search for a compatible donor for the child and took over the tests of HLA, which evaluates proteins called human leukocyte antigens, because the high cost represented a great challenge for the patient and his family. The boy from Quintana Roo received two scholarships, one of $1,000 for HLA tests and another of $20,000 to cover the operating expenses of hematopoietic cell or bone marrow transplantation, which today “is a treatment alternative to save thousands of lives in the world,” says Sánchez Larrayoza. He reveals that for five years Be The Match has been looking for donors for Mexican patients with incompatible relatives, “stem cells can come from Spain, the United States, France, Israel, Brazil, Argentina or anywhere on the planet.” Twenty percent of cases indicate that patients do not have compatible relatives “and they must be found”. In the case of the little boy from Quintana Roo, “if we had not had a donor, it would have been lethal”. IT IS URGENT TO END TABOOS The issue of bone marrow donation in Mexico is fraught with fears, taboos and prejudices, “they think it's painful, complicated, that they will stick needles in your back and there's nothing like that, it's like going to donate blood,” says the director. CHIEF mlh/csr/lll (photo)