New Life Could Save Giovanni
Umbilical Cord Blood Renews Doctors' Hope
By Shira Schoenberg
Monitor staff
Concord Monitor Online
6 March 2007
Another infant's umbilical cord could save Giovanni Guglielmo from a life-threatening immune deficiency disorder.
Doctors at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston have identified a donor whose blood may rejuvenate 7-month-old Giovanni's immune system.
"We're thrilled this can potentially save him," said Belmont resident Michael Guglielmo, Giovanni's father, who has mounted a media campaign and bone marrow drives in an effort to save his son.
Giovanni spent most of his life in hospitals battling the rare disorder. He has endured a condition that made his skin scaly and left him unable to digest food. For the past several months, he has been at Children's Hospital in Boston. The doctors told Guglielmo and his girlfriend, Christina Poulicakos, that only a bone marrow transfusion could save Giovanni's life. Although the National Marrow Donor Program Registry has about 11 million potential donors, none was a match for Giovanni, said Dr. Joseph Antin, chief of the stem cell transplantation program at Dana Farber.
Last week, the doctors told Guglielmo that they had found a match from a different source: the blood from an umbilical cord.
Antin explained that when a baby is born and the umbilical cord is clamped, there is still blood left in the placenta. That blood contains stem cells that can grow into mature blood cells. The cells are similar to those in bone marrow, which has traditionally been used to replace blood cells in patients with cancer or other diseases.
Because the immune system of a newborn has not been exposed to any germs, the criteria for finding a match for an umbilical cord blood donor are less strict than those for an adult bone marrow donor. Of the roughly 350 stem cell transplants that Dana Farber and Brigham and Women's Hospital perform each year, Antin said 7 percent to 10 percent involve blood transfusions from umbilical cords. They have an about 70 percent success rate in adults, and the chances are better for infants, Antin said.
Giovanni will be moved to a different floor Sunday. He will then begin 10 days of chemotherapy, Guglielmo said. Once the chemotherapy wipes his immune system out, he will get the new blood. It will then be six weeks before doctors know whether the transfusion is successful, Guglielmo said. Even if it is, he may still have to deal with other effects of the disorder, including a defective small intestine and a skin condition.
The transfusion will not end Guglielmo's crusade to sign up as many bone marrow donors as possible on the national registry, he said. Guglielmo plans to rename his campaign "Save Giovanni's Friends."
Bill Schaller, director of media relations at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, said that the week after an article about Giovanni appeared in the Boston Herald, the institute received 200 calls from people who wanted to find out more about donating bone marrow. In a typical week, it gets about 50.
"We have a huge national groundswell of support, and it would be irresponsible to walk away from it, when 35 percent of children waiting for bone marrow transplants die," Guglielmo said. "We want people to continue the marrow drives to save kids' lives."
