I received this on email from a friend :

TO IMS Faculty Members,


Dear Colleagues,

One of our UHN family, Dr. Ab Guha, has been recently diagnosed with
Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Ab is receiving first class care from the
team at PMH. His partners and colleagues are ensuring that Ab's
substantial responsibilities in patient care, research and education
are being looked after in his absence.

There is an urgent need to locate a bone marrow donor for Dr. Guha
as described in the article from the Toronto Star below. If you know
someone in the Bengali community, please encourage them to be
tested and register as a bone marrow donor. Additional information
can be obtained at http://www.onematch.ca" rel="nofollow">LINK .

The story in The Star is below.

_________________________

Doctor's life depends on donor match

COLIN O'CONNOR/TORONTO STAR

Dr. Abhijit Guha is a doctor and leukemia patient at Princess
Margaret Hospital in Toronto. He is waiting for a bone marrow match to
save his life.


But search is difficult among neuroscientist's Bengali community

Aug 27, 2008 04:30 AM=20

Nick Kyonka
Staff Reporter

For most of his life, Dr. Abhijit Guha has tirelessly volunteered
in the Bengali community, saving the lives of thousands of people.

Now he needs them to save his.

A renowned neuroscientist at Toronto's Western Hospital, Guha, 51,
was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia earlier this month.
He is confined to hospital and will soon need a bone-marrow transplant
to survive.

It's a serious problem for a member of an ethnic minority like
Guha, who was born in Calcutta in West Bengal, India.

"For whatever reason there seems some under-representation among
certain ethnic groups in the (bone marrow) donor registry," he
says, sitting in a bedside chair at Princess Margaret Hospital.

Normally chatty, he labours to maintain a quiet, snail-paced talk.
"These can be potentially curable cancers, but you need the bone
marrow match."

Found in the breastbone, ribs, hips, skull and spine, bone marrow
produces nutrient-rich red blood cells, infection-battling white blood
cells and platelets that help with clotting. Though donors and
recipients
don't have to be of the same ethnic background, most good marrow
matches will be.

With an estimated 700,000 East Indians living in Canada and only
about 4,800 registered donors, Guha's community is one of the
most under-represented.

Canadian statistics were unavailable, but recent American figures
estimate that South Asians have a 55 per cent chance of finding an
unrelated matching donor through the national and international
networks. None have been found yet for Guha. Between 70 and 80 per
cent of Caucasians find matches in the U.S.

If no suitable donor is found, doctors will likely ask one of
Guha's two teenaged children to donate, a risk since they would only
have half of the genetic markers needed for a good match.

And even with a good match, Guha notes, there is still nearly a one in
five chance he will die. "But this is (my) best shot."

Guha came to Canada with his parents when he was 7, and his family
has been heavily involved with the local Bengali community since.

But they also wanted to do more for Bengalis abroad, so Guha and
his father decided to improve the low education rate among the poor
in East India. For 30 years, they have run a free education centre
for underprivileged adults and children. Then, about 10 years ago
Guha met Dr. Robin Sengupta, another expatriate who wanted to help
the Bengali people. Together they helped establish the National
Neurosciences Centre in Calcutta, which offers below-cost life-saving
operations for the area's poor and medical training to others.
Guha flies in several times a year to help with operations
and provide hands-on instruction.

"I have never met another human being who helps everybody, almost
to a fault," Sengupta said. "That is what he does."

Interested bone marrow donors can find more information or register
online at onematch.ca <http://onematch.ca/&gt; .
_______________________

Thanks to Dr. R. Bell for passing on this notice!



I hope spreading the word will help find a matching donor...

Hiren