Mini-transplant success story

When Edwin Sedan first noticed he was losing hair, he brushed it off as nothing more than an early sign of aging. But when handfuls of hair began falling out, he paid a visit to his family doctor. What he discovered stunned him.

"I thought a prescription for Rogaine would cure my problem," says Edwin, a technical designer at The Boeing Company. "Instead, I found out that I had chronic myeloid leukemia."

The bad news came while he and his fiancée, Jackie — now his wife — were planning their wedding. Now, the couple faced the prospect of planning for Edwin's treatment at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center instead: a stem-cell transplant, the only known cure for his disease.

Luckily, Edwin quickly found a matching donor. Tests showed that his only sibling, his sister Merlie, could serve as his stem-cell donor. But tests revealed that Edwin had liver complications that would make the transplant too risky.

Fortunately, the doctors had one remaining option that could save his life: a modified transplant procedure that had shown great promise. Known as the mini-transplant, the procedure, developed at the Hutchinson Center, avoids the very high doses of radiation and chemotherapy used in conventional transplants that can be toxic to weaker patients.

Edwin, like many other mini-transplant patients, underwent the procedure entirely as an outpatient, with Jackie, a nurse, acting as his caregiver.

"The mini-transplant was my very last option," he says. "I'm grateful to the doctors — and my sister and wife — who made it a successful one."

Several years later, Edwin is back at the Hutchinson Center, this time as an outreach volunteer, building connections with communities of color. Part of his work involves efforts to help transplant patients who have difficulty finding matching donors by recruiting donors of various ethnic backgrounds.

"I'm one of the fortunate ones, I had a matching donor in my family," Edwin says. "Now I'm trying to give something back to the Hutchinson Center to help those who are less fortunate."

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