Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : MISCELLANY/ NEWSMAKERS AND MILESTONES

Tori Lee Glezos wants to be an Olympic gymnast and a doctor, but first she must beat the cancer that has spread through her body. A daring bone-marrow transplant she received last Wednesday--the first performed in Orange County--is her last chance.

In August, 9-year-old Tori was diagnosed to have rhabdomyosarcoma, a muscle cancer that spread through her leg, abdomen and lungs. She wasn’t expected to live until Christmas.

She defied that prediction, but the Huntington Beach girl’s tumors continued to grow. With Tori’s support, her parents and the doctors at Childrens Hospital of Orange County decided to try a radical treatment.

They gave Tori doses of chemotherapy drugs, enough, they hoped, to kill the cancer. But the treatment would also kill Tori’s bone marrow, an essential tissue that produces blood cells.

Last Wednesday, a small fraction of Tori’s bone marrow cells were returned to her bloodstream. The marrow had been “harvested” from her hip bones, purified and frozen several weeks earlier. By using her own marrow, the chances of a possibly fatal rejection are reduced to less than 1%.

Doctors expect to know in two weeks whether the chemotherapy killed the cancer. And soon after, they’ll know if the reintroduced marrow has taken root in her bones and restored Tori’s ability to produce blood and fight off disease.