DKMS Bone Marrow Drive Held for 23-year-old Whippany Leukemia Patient

This Friday, hundreds of Springfield strangers who want to save a life are invited to help at a bone marrow drive. The DKMS Bone Marrow Drive will be held for a 23-year-old Whippany leukemia patient at Springfield Elks on 80 Springfield Ave. The drive goes from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Gina Cammarata is currently fighting Acute Myeloid Leukemia and is in need of a bone marrow transplant.

Leukemia is Cammarata’s second cancer diagnosis in two years.

In 2015, Cammarata was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, an extremely rare bone cancer, after she found a lump on her clavicle bone.

Shortly after Cammarata defeated her battle against Ewing Sarcoma, she was dealt another devastating blow: she was diagnosed with leukemia.

“We’re pretty much in shock,” Gina’s mom, Allison Cammarata, said. “We’re devastated.”

In a matter of nine days after Cammarata was diagnosed with leukemia, she was intubated at the hospital. Leukemia is a very aggressive cancer and is the most common pediatric cancer in the U.S., DKMS said.

The process to become a potential donor is simple, quick, and pain-free. All residents have to do is swab the inside of their cheek to be added to the bone marrow registry.

According to DKMS, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with cancer every three minutes.

Nearly 14,000 patients need transplants using cells donated from a stranger in the U.S. Less than half of these patients will get the bone marrow transplant they need to survive.

“Someone that you love could need this,” Allison Cammarata said. “You can save someone else’s life, not necessarily Gina’s, but someone else’s.”

Unfortunately, in many cases the person the event is hosted for doesn’t find a match at their event. But, these events add many people to the registry and can locate a match for another person in need.

While 30 percent of patients receive transplants from family members, 70 percent of patients have to turn to the national registry to find transplants from a compatible donor.

“It’s paying it forward and finding matches for other patients around the world,” Kelly Taylor from DKMS said.

DKMS is an international non-profit organization focused on blood cancer and other blood-related illnesses. DKMS strives to inspire as many people as they can to register as bone marrow donors.

More than 170,000 Americans are diagnosed with blood cancer each year, DKMS reports. Over the past 25 years, DKMS has registered over 800,000 potential donors and made more than 2,500 life-saving transplants possible.

If you can’t make it to the Bone Marrow Drive this Friday, you can order a swab kit from DKMS.org and perform the cheek swab at home.