Stem cells donated by a recent W.F. West High School graduate are on their way to Italy to treat a blood cancer patient, thanks to the National Bone Marrow Donor Program (NMDP).
Formerly known as Be The March, the National Bone Marrow Donor Program is a global nonprofit leader in cell therapy, helping save the lives of patients with blood cancers and disorders.
Cameron Amoroso, 20, of Winlock, graduated from W.F. West High School in Chehalis in 2023 and signed up to be on NMDP’s registry at the encouragement of his football coach at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) when he joined the team that fall.
“My coach was really big on it, and so he had like this whole presentation and stuff with someone from NMDP, and it was super nice. Almost the whole entire football team just did a quick swab so we could all get signed up,” Cameron said.
Cameron’s mom, Brandi Amoroso, had been encouraging her son to get on the NMDP registry since he turned 18.
“Somebody very close to me has leukemia, and I’ve been on the registry myself for, I think, 15 years now. I’ve never been called,” Brandi Amoroso said.
Cameron was a student of W.F. West High School paraeducator Stacey Cummings while her daughter was receiving bone marrow transplants for leukemia, she said.
“Cameron Amaroso was my student the year she had her transplant, and now he is a donor at PLU. That is so cool! He is a wonderful young man,” Cummings said.
Cameron was initially hesitant about doing a surgical marrow donation, Brandi said, but with the knowledge from his coach’s presentation that donations of bone marrow and stem cells are typically similar to giving plasma, he signed up for the registry with the rest of his team.
While many potential donors on the NMDP registry can wait decades to match with someone in need of a transplant, Cameron got a notification he was a potential match for a blood cancer patient within a year.
“My son, I believe, is the third one in the history of PLU, since they started this, that has been a match,” Brandi Amoroso said.
After he was notified he was a potential match in February, Cameron completed a handful of medical tests to confirm he was a good match for the patient.
“They said I was the best match possible,” Cameron said.
A couple of doctors appointments later to confirm he was healthy enough to donate and his stem cell counts were at a good level, Cameron traveled to Seattle on April 6 to prepare for the hour-and-a-half donation.
“I went to Seattle April 6, donated April 7, and I was free to go the next day. It was super easy,” Cameron said.
While Cameron did have a negative reaction to a medication he was given to increase his stem cell count for the donation, he quickly recovered and had no lasting adverse effects, he said.
NMDP policy requires Cameron to wait two years before following up with the patient in Italy who received his stem cells in order for the patient to finish undergoing treatment.
“There is some followup, but he’s going to continue to stay on the site to still donate if there ever was another match for him,” Brandi said.
When asked what he would say to anyone considering signing up to be a donor through NMDP, Cameron said, “I’d say absolutely do it. You get a lot of time before (the donation) to make sure you want to do it, so if you are a match, you can always say, ‘I’m not comfortable with this anymore.’ But, in my opinion, it’s super easy ... Nothing’s painful. There’s not a huge time commitment, just a couple days here and there.”
Roughly 90% of bone marrow donations are akin to giving plasma, and the other 10% require an hour-long surgical procedure with a few days recovery.
Potential National Marrow Donation Program enrollees must be between 18 and 40 years old to donate, NMDP states on its website.
The enrollment process involves having the inside of a cheek swabbed and registering for a list to commit to the possibility of being a stem cell or bone marrow donor.
The whole registration process takes about four minutes to complete.
NMDP covers all costs associated with enrollment and donation, including medical care, travel expenses and wage compensation for taking time off of work.
Earlier this year, three current W.F. West High School students organized a series of NMDP enrollment events as part of a SkillsUSA community service project titled Hunting 4A National Marrow Donation Program.
The project, which included three in-person enrollment events and a virtual signup option, garnered 45 new signups for the NMDP registry.
W.F. West High School seniors Will Cummings and Allie Anderson and sophomore Charli Clinton organized the project in honor of sophomore Hunter Wilson, who is battling a rare bone marrow disorder, and Will Cummings’ sister, Tess Lund, who fought leukemia several years ago. Lund, a 2014 graduate of W.F. West High School, and her sister, Hannah Cummings, ran the half marathon in New York City on March 16 to celebrate Lund’s recovery.
“Both girls ran to honor Tess, her amazing journey and her stem cell donor, Henrick from Germany,” Stacey Cummings, said in an email to The Chronicle. “ … After transplant, Tess could not walk around the block, (and) three years later, she finished a half marathon!”
Lund ran the half marathon in a charity bib for NMDP and Hannah Cummings ran in a bib for Germany’s donor match organization, Delete Blood Cancers.
“It was a big week in our house … The girls raised $6,000 for NMDP, and the students registered 45 new donor volunteers from within the Chehalis School District,” Stacey Cummings said of the marathon and the Hunting 4A National Marrow Donation Program.
“Our family has been so blessed by this community,” Stacey Cummings said. “To see Cam giving his stem cell donation is really overwhelming to me. He has truly saved the life of someone who has no other option. There are no words to express the depths of our gratitude to those who are willing to donate to NMDP.”
For more information about bone marrow donations, stem cell donations and NMDP, visit https://www.nmdp.org/.
