A match for schoolboy Leo Sproson, 16, was found following a Mirror appeal, but the donor has to undergo further testing – and now the transplant can take place.
A desperately sick teenager is set to undergo vital treatment from a donor identified following a Mirror appeal despite a last-minute delay.
We first told of the worldwide search for a match for Leo Sproson, 16, who has leukaemia, in October last year.
The brave schoolboy needed a vital stem cell transplant for a second chance at life. A donor was found just weeks after we teamed up with the blood cancer charity DKMS to get more people on the stem cell donor register.
But the mystery donor had to undergo tests leading to doctors asking Leo’s dad to donate his stem cells due to the extreme nature of his son’s illness.
Leo has been told the match is ready after all. His overjoyed mum Jenna, 41, said: “I had a call from the hospital to say Leo’s unrelated match has been cleared and ready to go.
“We will be admitted on Monday Feb 9. Then on Feb 10, Leo starts his intense chemo course. He is then set to have his Stem Cell Transplant on Feb 18. This also means Leo does not need radiotherapy.
“It is the best news we could have asked for.”
Around 1,000 signed up online after we made the appeal and more than 700 people registered in a single day at an event in Bromsgrove, near Birmingham, where Leo lives.
Jenna, 41, who runs a pet care firm, will go into isolation with her son on the Birmingham QE Hospital stem cell ward. The transplant takes just one hour.
But Leo will be monitored for the rest of his life. Just one in three patients find a matching stem cell donor in their family; none of Leo’s relatives were a good match.
This meant he needed vital help from the stem cell donor register; just seven percent of the eligible population in the UK have signed up, making the search “like looking for a needle in a haystack”, according to DKMS.
Jenna and Leo’s dad Warren, 46, a driver, will continue to raise awareness of the need for donors. A new opt out scheme on organ donation in England was named ‘Max and Keira’s Law’ in honour of Max Johnson and Keira Ball.
It followed a five-year Mirror campaign. We told how Max, then nine, of Winsford, Cheshire, received the heart of nine-year-old Keira following her death in a car accident near her home in Barnstaple, Devon.
All adults in England are considered as having agreed to donate their own organs when they die unless they opt out.
Speaking last month, Jenna told the Mirror: “He understands that they’re trying to save his life. It is hard for him as he is 16 and he cannot see his friends, he can’t play his games in hospital. But he has accepted it because he knows that they are doing everything they can for him. He is so laid back, he takes it in his stride.”
A male-to-male donation is preferred though both Leo’s parents are a partial match. Warren was ready to step in as a donor following the delays caused by checks being carried out on the unknown donor.
Leo went into liver failure days after his 12th birthday, before his diagnosis with acute myeloid leukaemia at 16. Warren said the support of strangers “meant more than words can ever say”.
Warren said Leo had been “incredibly strong” ever since his diagnosis. “He just rolls with everything,” he explained as they appealed for donors to come forward last year.
“Obviously we’re still absolutely heartbroken over the situation, no parent should see their child go through this. The way he deals with everything. I’m really proud of him.”
Leo’s aunt Kate Best, 43, a fitness instructor who also lives in Bromsgrove, handed out fliers to get would-be donors to sign up for swab tests. She is determined to help others as the family raises awareness of the need for people to join the stem cell register.
Blood cancers are the third most common cause of cancer death in this country. Every year, nearly 13,000 people die from blood cancer in the UK. At any one time there are around 2,000 people here who need a stem cell transplant.
*Order a swab kit at: dkms.org.uk
