Originally Published: 2004-10-17

Family, friends and neighbours of Cathy Holder, a Waterloo resident of Italian descent, have launched a public appeal in search of a suitable bone marrow donor who could save Cathy's life. The outcome of this campaign - and the fate of Cathy Holder - could lie in the hands of the Italian-Canadian community.
In 2001, Cathy was diagnosed with breast cancer, and after surgery, radiation and chemotherapy treatment, she seemed to have made a full recovery. But in December of 2003 Cathy came down with an infection she couldn't shake. She was admitted to hospital and underwent tests, when it was revealed that she was suffering from a rare side effect of chemotherapy - leukemia.
"The possibility that this could happen to someone as a result of chemotherapy was presented to us," says her husband, Chris. "But it's presented in such a way - it's so very unlikely, the odds are so low that this would ever happen - that nobody has turned down chemotherapy because this might happen some day."
That remote possibility has now become a reality for the Holders, both 46, and their two daughters, Courtney, 20, and Caitlin, 17. Shortly after being diagnosed with AML (acute myelogenous leukemia) in December, Cathy began a round of chemotherapy, which entailed three periods of hospitalization over four months. She was in remission from January until early September, when she was diagnosed with a return of leukemia and began another round of chemotherapy.
Even if this round of chemotherapy is successful - which the Holders will find out in the coming weeks - it's highly unlikely to cure the leukemia permanently. "There is a very slim chance she'll be cured by the chemotherapy, but it's rare. Once [the leukemia] comes back the first time, the chances of it never coming back again are less and less. The bone marrow transplant is the only treatment that doctors stand behind and say represents an opportunity for a cure," says Chris.
The Holders have known this since Cathy was first diagnosed with leukemia. Their problem has been finding a suitable donor, someone whose bone marrow has a sufficiently close genetic makeup to that of Cathy. The genetic markers used to match donors and recipients are called Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA's). Because HLA's are inherited from our biological parents - 50 percent from each - the most common place to find a match lies within the immediate family. In approximately 30 percent of cases a sibling possesses a suitable match. But in the majority of cases - like Cathy's, whose brother is not a good match - a donor must be sought outside the family. This is a much more complicated procedure than finding matching blood types, and the two procedures are unrelated.

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