Sean Sadler, who desperately needs a life saving bone marrow transplant with his wife PatA CANCER sufferer has made a desperate appeal to Swindon residents to become bone marrow donors.

Sean Sadler, 39, who worked as a builder in Swindon before he was ill, needs a donor after being diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma five years ago.

Treatments, including chemo-therapy and a stem cell transplant have been unsuccessful, so a donor is his only hope.

He said: "The more donors there are, the greater the chance of finding a match, not just for me but for all patients who need a bone marrow transplant."

Last October, doctors said that Sean, whose father died of the disease aged 47, had between one and two years to live if he continued with just conventional chemotherapy.

So the race is on to find a suitable donor to give him one last chance.

Hopes were raised at the end of last year when some potential matches were found in Germany and America, but in the end they were not close enough.

Sean's wife, Pat, 50, and son, Thomas, 15, are now keeping their fingers crossed that the British Bone Marrow Register's push to recruit 40,000 donors by the end of this year will find someone suitable.

The family lived in Swindon before moving to Avening, near Tetbury.

David Chandler, of the National Blood Service, which runs the register, said: "Thirty per cent of bone marrow transplants carried out are from a related donor normally a brother or sister.

"The other 70 per cent rely on finding a match with an unrelated, volunteer donor.

"However, because of the numbers of tissue types trying to find a suitable match can be difficult.

"We currently recruit volunteers to join the register from our pool of new and existing blood donors.

"However, although there are 168,000 donors currently on the panel, we want more people to think of the difference they could make.

"Helping us to save the lives of sick and injured patients really is giving someone in need the greatest gif t the gift of life."

To join the register you need to be aged between 18 and 44 and in good health. You also need to be eligible to become a blood donor .Call 0845 7711711 or visit www.blood.co.uk.

Factfile

Bone marrow is the soft, jelly-like tissue found in the hollow centre of certain bones

It is where stem cells, the building blocks which form normal blood cells, are made

Transplants are needed when the bone marrow becomes diseased or damaged

Often the damage is a result of treatment for leukaemia or a related cancer of the blood

Approximately 40 to 60 per cent of transplants are successful

Only 30 per cent of transplants are from related donors

There are between 200 and 250 bone marrow transplants from unrelated people every year

In 2005 the British Bone Marrow Register needs to recruit a further 40,000 donors.

Kevin Shoesmith