Carew’s Daughter Receives Rare Type of Transfusion

Michelle Carew, the 18-year-old daughter of baseball great Rod Carew, was recovering Friday after doctors performed a rare type of blood transfusion to battle the leukemia that threatens her life.

The young woman underwent the 45-minute procedure at Childrens Hospital of Orange County surrounded by family members, who to no avail had waged a public campaign to find a suitable bone marrow donor. The rare operation involved transfusing blood cells from a donated umbilical cord to Carew, whose leukemia was diagnosed in November.

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“We are very optimistic,” Dr. Mitchell S. Cairo said of the treatment, which has a 75% to 90% chance of success. “This is an exciting moment. She tolerated the procedure extremely well.”

Rod Carew, a former California Angels star who is in the baseball Hall of Fame, told reporters that it had been an emotional day. “It’s been unreal,” he said. “I had a good cry with my family; there were a lot of built-up emotions that I just let loose today. We feel good about this, but we have a long way to go.”

Doctors opted for the umbilicalcord blood transplant, Cairo said, after a genetically matched donor became available at the New York Blood Center, from which the umbilical cord cells were flown.

“The umbilical cord blood is a special gift,” Cairo said of the procedure, so new that it has been performed only 200 times in the world, eight times at Childrens Hospital. “We’ve found that the blood that circulates in the placenta is very rich in those stem cells that have the ability to make other cells.”

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If Friday’s transplant proves successful, Cairo said, doctors should begin detecting an increase in Carew’s white blood cell count within two to four weeks. After that, he said, she will be closely monitored for possible signs of infection.

If all goes well, the doctor said, Carew could be released from the hospital in six to 12 weeks, with the ability to function normally. After two years of living without symptoms, Cairo said, she would have a 95% chance of being completely cured.