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Friday, October 17, 2003
By ROBERT RATISH
STAFF WRITER
MEL EVANS / THE RECORD
WAYNE - Nicole Gioia is as tough as 12-year-olds come. The middle school
student loves sports, practices hip-hop and tap dance, and, as the top
female student in her tae kwon do class, is close to earning her black belt.
But for her latest fight, she'll need the help of the whole community.
Two years ago, Nicole was diagnosed with a type of cancer called Hodgkin's
lymphoma. Despite chemotherapy and radiation treatments designed to kill the
cancer cells, the disease keeps coming back. Hoping to finish off the
lymphoma for good, doctors have recommended a relatively new treatment that
requires a bone marrow transplant.
Finding a match for her bone marrow type won't be easy. Of the nearly 5
million people in a national registry, none matches her. So the family has
organized a bone marrow drive in the hopes of finding that one match.
The drive will be Saturday at the Calvary Temple on Preakness Avenue, and
the test is simple. Participants need only give a small blood sample that
will determine whether their marrow is compatible with Nicole's.
Nicole stayed home from George Washington Middle School to rest Tuesday, a
day after her latest chemotherapy treatment.
"I was supposed to go today, but I wasn't feeling well," she said,
describing the nausea that comes with her treatments.
She often makes up schoolwork at home, and although she can still practice
many of her favorite activities, like playing the drums, she said the
disease keeps her from contact sports.
"I like to play basketball, but my platelets are low so I'd bruise easily,"
she said.
Hodgkin's lymphoma is a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system,
which carries cells vital to the immune system. The disease causes abnormal
cell growth in the lymphatic system.
She first discovered something was wrong on a day when bad news was already
in abundance: Sept. 11, 2001.
"She came home from school that day and had a pain in her neck," said her
father, Rick Gioia. "She had a lump, so we went to the doctor."
Tests showed a tumor 4½ inches in diameter. Nicole would later go through
chemotherapy and radiation, but after six months, the cancer grew bigger and
metastasized to her lungs, Gioia said.
Doctors then recommended a
stem cell transplant in which stem cells from her own blood were harvested.
After chemotherapy, they were injected back into her body to help replenish
the cells that had been destroyed.
"It seemed to work," Rick Gioia said. "Everything was dormant; it got
smaller. We enjoyed remission."
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(Below)Nicole Gioia, 12, who has Hodgkin's
lymphoma, with mother Denise, brother Anthony, and father Rick at home in
Wayne.
But soon a spot showed up in her lung. Doctors surgically removed it, but
Nicole's chances of a relapse are very high.
Now doctors are hoping that a bone marrow transplant - a treatment still in
clinical trials - can help.
"It's a fairly new procedure," said Dr. Tanya Trippett, Nicole's doctor and
chairwoman of the pediatric lymphoma service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center in New York. "It utilizes the immune system in tandem with the
chemotherapy to destroy the cancer."
The treatment would enable Nicole to receive lower doses of chemotherapy
drugs, which would be boosted by her natural defenses, she said.
"You give chemotherapy to kill cancer, but you also want to have the
patient's immune system fight the cancer cells," Trippett said.
Donors who provide blood samples at the drive will be registered in a
national database. If they are contacted to be a match, they will not be
told who the recipient is, said Cheryl Papasso of the River Edge-based HLA
Registry foundation.
Participants must be 18 to 60 years old and in good general health. If they
are a potential match, they will be contacted for further tests. If they are
deemed compatible, they may be asked to provide marrow for the transplant.
"Our registry has a little over 200,000 donors, and we have helped over 600
bone marrow stem cell transplants," Papasso said.
Nicole's family will be responsible for the cost of the drive - $30 per
donor. Donors may contribute at the site to help defray the costs.
"She lost her innocence," Gioia said of his daughter. "Here's a child who
played everything. She still does to a point, but it's all on the back
burner. She was in absolute perfect physical shape. She looks healthy as a
bull. It's just what's going on in her body."
The bone marrow drive will be Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Calvary
Temple, 1111 Preakness Ave. More information can be found on the Internet at
www.nicolegioia.org.
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