Bone marrow donors
sought for 2 young
cancer victims

A 3-year-old girl in Kapolei and a 14-year-old Kaiser High School ninth-grader are among children who need lifesaving bone marrow transplants.

They are Taja Harris, of Chinese, Hawaiian, Korean and Caucasian descent, who has acute lymphocytic leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and Ryan Kitamura of Hawaii Kai, diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia.

The Hawaii Bone Marrow Donor Registry at St. Francis Medical Center will try to find a match for the two and others needing a marrow transplant, during the 19th Annual Great Aloha Run Family Fitness Expo at the Neal Blaisdell Center Exhibition Hall.

The drives will be from 4 to 10 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Roy Yonashiro, the donor recruit coordinator at the Hawaii registry, will discuss the marrow donation process at 2 p.m. on Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday at the seminar stage.

Donors of all ethnic backgrounds are encouraged to register to help save the lives of Taja and Ryan and many other children and adults with life-threatening blood diseases.

Donor matches usually occur among people with the same ethnic backgrounds, but donors of other ethnic groups could possibly be a match, according to the registry. Minority donors are critically needed.

Donors must be 18 to 60 and in good health. They need to register only once. A small blood sample is collected for tissue typing.

The potential donor is placed on the Hawaii and national donor registries at no cost to the donor.

Registered donors only need to update their information, which can be done on the registry's Web site: www.stfrancishawaii.org. For more information, call the registry at 547-6154.