Plight of Ailing Boy Captures Hearts of 278 Possible Donors : Health: A bone marrow match is being sought for 10-year-old Kyle Varonfakis of Rancho Penasquitos.

A bone marrow-typing drive drew 278 potential donors Sunday in an effort to find a match to help a 10-year-old Rancho Penasquitos boy who suffers from an often-fatal blood disorder.

Attendance was under the organizer’s expected 400 participants, and far below the 630 people tested in June at the first such drive.

“We’re not disappointed, we’re just going to keep working away at it,” said Lynn Stedd, spokeswoman for the San Diego Blood Bank that ran the drive for Kyle Varonfakis. The typing tests take several weeks to analyze.

Varonfakis was diagnosed six years ago with a rare, pre-leukemia disease that last year progressed so far as to require that he have monthly blood transfusions.

“His bone marrow is gradually becoming less and less effective at producing red blood cells,” Stedd said.

Although the red-haired, freckled boy is active and has spent little time in the hospital, doctors hope to find a bone marrow donor for Varonfakis before his disease progresses further, Stedd said.

The chances of two randomly selected people having the same type of bone marrow is 1 in 20,000, Stedd said.

“It’s been likened to the lottery; people feel like they’ve won when they’ve matched,” Stedd said.

The National Bone Marrow Registry has 380,000 potential donors on file, but there is a great need for donors from ethnic groups, who represent only 14% of the registry’s members, Stedd said.

Four previous bone marrow-typing drives drew a total of about 900 potential donors for Varonfakis, whose father is Greek-French and whose mother is German-Irish.

Even if a match isn’t found in San Diego, Varonfakis’ mother, Debbie Poggrioli, said she is confident that one can be found from other similar drives.

“A lot of people throughout the country are doing these, and they could find a match for Kyle,” Poggrioli said.

Funds to conduct the tests, which cost about $75 each, have run out and Poggrioli said the family is going to have to concentrate on fund-raising campaigns over the next two months before another marrow-typing drive can be held. Among the events being considered are a walkathon and a golf and video game tournaments, she said.