An 11-year-old daughter of a consultant general and laparoscopic surgeon at Lister is in need a lifesaving stem cell transplant to cure her aplastic anaemia.
Arya Lloyd, lives in Cambridge and was diagnosed of aplastic anaemia, a serious condition which occurs when the body stops producing enough new blood cells. She will go through the immunosuppressant treatment as her immune system isn't working properly and therefore, has put her at a greater risk of infections. Diagnosed earlier this year, she is presently receiving treatment at St Mary's Hospital, London and urgently needs a stem cell donor. But it is difficult to find a perfect match for Arya, who is half Indian, with mixed ethnicity.
Helped by blood cancer charity Antony Nolan, Arya recalls, “They said it would be hard to find a donor for me because of my ethnicity but it isn't impossible. There is hope.”
The best possible match for Arya is most likely to have the same background or mix of ethnicities. Currently, people with mixed Asian or other minority backgrounds have a 20% chance of finding a match from an unrelated donor, compared with nearly 70% for people with white, north European heritage.
Speaking about Arya's condition, her mum Brundha said, “Arya has always been fit and healthy, but life changed very quickly; all of a sudden we were talking to doctors about aplastic anaemia and Arya has had to stop many of the things she liked doing because her platelets, the tiny blood cells that help your body form clots, were low.
“Because Arya is of mixed race, it was always unlikely we would find a match quickly. We have therefore started this appeal because we don't want to give up hope. It's a waiting game, but there could be someone out there who is a match. We also understand that younger people make better matches, so we would like to do all we can to make this more widely known.”
