A high school student is shaving his head in honour of his father, who was diagnosed with leukaemia 45 years ago.
In March 1979, James Young's father Mark, had a bone marrow transplant. The operation was the first successful bone marrow transplant in Australia.
At the time, Mark was a 10-year-old boy living in Newcastle. He received a donation of bone marrow cells from his younger brother Trevor, 6, at Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick. Three months after the operation, Mark was recovering well.
The result of Mark's treatment encouraged the medical team to do more transplants on children. Before Mark's successful donation, a bone marrow transplant on another patient had failed four years earlier, because the boy was too ill and his leukaemia was too advanced.
Since then, the pioneer of the technique, Professor E Donnell Thomas, of Seattle, stated it should be used when the patient is in remission from the disease, and is well. That was when the Prince of Wales doctors discovered Mark, who had been treated at Royal Newcastle Hospital for five years before being investigated in Sydney.
Now James, a Year 12 student and prefect from Cronulla High School, is doing this year's World's Greatest Shave, for his dad, who is living a full and healthy life thanks to a donation so long ago.
He hopes to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation, which supports patients and medical research to ensure improved outcomes for people who have been diagnosed with the condition.
"Dad got cancer again, in his kidney, which was taken out, when I was in Year 7, in 2019," James, of Gymea said. "He is a diabetic, and he still goes to see specialists."
At Cronulla High School, senior students are hosting a World's Greatest Shave event. Each year group has chosen a charity to support.
The Leukaemia Foundation has welcomed two significant developments aimed at increasing the number and diversity of bone marrow and stem cell donors across Australia.
These initiatives represent an important step forward in the fight against blood cancers, including leukaemia. More than 140,000 people live with blood cancer nationally.
The Albanese Government and state and territory Health Ministers, have committed to enhancing the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry through a $4.2 million funding boost from the Cord Blood Export Revenue fund. This investment aims to increase local bone marrow donor recruitment, diversify the donor pool, and improve access to bone marrow transplants for Australian patients.
The report highlights the need for greater awareness and registration for stem cell donations, recommending strategies to expand the Strength to Give campaign and facilitate donor recruitment.
More than 600 Australians with blood cancer require donated stem cells for a transplant each year. With not enough Australians registered to be stem cell donors, about three in four stem cell donations must be sourced internationally. Australia's donor pool is declining and cannot meet the needs of diverse patients because it is small and inadequately diverse.
A stem cell transplant for some blood cancer patients can provide a long-term cure if successful, and for some may be a last resort therapy.
