Name: _____________________________
Date: __________
Period: ______
Guided Reading 1
“A Cure for Cancer?”
Answer all questions with full sentences.
A. Make a PREDICTION about what the article is about. Do not just restate the title.
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B. ANNOTATE the article as you read. Make sure that you:
o Write at least three questions in the margins that you wished the author answered.
o Circle three new words. Do not circle names of things or people.
o Star three important main ideas.
C. EVALUATE the article when you finish reading. What is the PURPOSE of the article?
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D. Answer the following questions after you read.
1.
Question one is a summarizing question.
3.
Why is it important for the tissues of a bone
marrow donor and bone marrow recipient
to match closely?
a. you only get one chance to donate
2.
b. parents are the only ones who can
donate bone marrow
c. the donor’s marrow could make the
recipient sick
d. rejection of bone marrow is less likely
if the tissues match closely
Question two is a definition question.
Define the word “Leukemia”.
a. a disorder where your blood has a hard
time carrying oxygen around the body
b. type of cancer that affects the white
blood cells
c. type of disease that makes your hands
shake
d. a disease that affects your eyesight
Question three is a connection question.
Why can someone with leukemia benefit
from a bone marrow transplant?
a. new bone marrow can cure leukemia
b. new bone marrow postpones the affects
of leukemia until later in life
c. bone marrow cures leukemia, but gives
you bone cancer instead
d. they can not benefit from a transplant
4.
Question four is a content question.
How long is the life expectancy of someone
with Anissa’s type of leukemia?
a. 20 years
b. 10 years
c. 6 months
d. 5 years
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Question five is an open-ended opinion question. Be sure to read all of the requirements of the
question. For example, if the question asks for two examples of supporting details from the text, be
sure to give two. Write your answer in the space provided.
5a. Do you think that it is ethical for a parent to volunteer a young child to be a bone marrow
donor for an older sister or brother? Give reasons for your answer.
5b. Do you think that it is ethical for a parent to conceive a child to be a bone marrow donor for
an older sibling? Explain your answer.
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“A Cure for Cancer?”
Doctors have saved many lives by performing
organ transplants – replacing the diseased organ
of one person with the healthy organ of another.
Many adults or adolescents are willing, and even
eager, to volunteer as organ or tissue donors. But
what if the potential donor is a young child? Do
parents have the right to volunteer their child as
an organ or tissue donor? More importantly, is it
right for parents to conceive a child in the hope
that the baby can be an organ or tissue donor to
its older brother or sister?
Bone Marrow Transplants
Leukemia is a type of cancer that affects the
leukocytes, or white blood cells. White blood
cells are produced in bone marrow in the skull,
ribs, and pelvis. Leukemia disrupts the
production of healthy white blood cells and may
eventually lead to death because the victim has a
weakened immune system. Thousands of
children in the United States suffer from
leukemia. The best hope for curing them is a
bone marrow transplant. A bone marrow
transplant is the transfer of bone marrow cells
from one person to another. Bone marrow
transplants can restore the proper function of the
bone marrow and cure leukemia.
The success of a bone marrow transplant
depends largely on the compatibility of the tissue
types of the donor and the recipient. If the tissues
do not match closely, the immune system will
reject the donor’s bone marrow cells. Even
patients who do find a donor with compatible
tissue have only about a 20 percent chance of
surviving leukemia. The more closely the donor
and recipient are related, the greater the chance
that they will have the same tissue type, and the
more likely the transplant will succeed. In most
cases, the best bone marrow donor is a patient’s
brother or sister. Often even a patient’s parents
do not have bone marrow that is compatible with
their children’s tissue because their children are a
combination of both their tissues, not just one.
The transplant operation poses little risk to the
donor. During the donation procedure, the donor
is anesthetized, and the bone marrow is
withdrawn with a long needle that is inserted into
the hip bone. At most, the donor may experience
some discomfort when she or he awakes.
Having a Child to Save a Child
Anissa Ayala was diagnosed with leukemia
when she was 15 years old. Anissa’s doctors told
her parents that 80 to 90 percent of patients with
her type of leukemia have a life expectancy of
five years unless they have a bone marrow
transplant. Anissa’s parents launched a
nationwide search for a compatible donor, but
they were unable to find one.
Anissa’s parents then decided to conceive
another child in the hope that he or she would
have the same tissue type as Anissa. The Ayala’s
were lucky – prenatal tests showed that the fetus
could be a bone marrow donor. Anissa received a
bone marrow transplant from her little sister,
Marissa, when Anissa was 19 and Marissa was
14 months old.
A recent surgery of bone marrow transplant
centers turned up at least 40 cases in which
families admitted that they had conceived a child
to be a bone marrow donor. One couple had
conceived three children in an effort to get a
donor. In another case, a woman who had been
divorced and remarried was artificially
inseminated with the sperm of her first husband
when a child from her first marriage was
diagnosed with leukemia.
Ethical Questions
People who argue against conceiving children to
be tissue donors say that children conceived just
for the purpose of being tissue doors are likely to
be unloved or unwanted. In addition, it is
dehumanizing to consider children as little more
than potential tissue sources. And what happens
to a family when children who are conceived to
be tissue donors turn out not to be compatible
with their siblings? Will these children still be
loved by their parents?
People who approve of the decision say that the
need for a bone-marrow donor is a perfectly
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good reason to have a child. Parents who
conceive a child with the hope of getting a tissue
donor will have at least that child if the older
child dies. Also, if the child with leukemia dies,
the parents will know that they did everything in
their power to save their child. Few parents
would let their child die without doing
everything possible to save him or her. If
everything does work out and the younger
brother or sister grows up knowing they saved
their older siblings life, what greater gift could
there be?
No Longer Left to Chance
This issue was recently widely publicized with
the release of a film in 2009 called “My Sister’s
Keeper.” The film is based on a novel by Jodi
Picoult with the same title and depicts a young
girl who is put through painful procedures in
order to keep her older sister alive. In the story,
the parents use a technology that is currently
available where the embryo is tested for
compatibility before it is placed inside the
mother to grow. During the course of the movie,
the younger sister sues her parents for the rights
to her own body, stating that it should be her
decision whether to continue donating bone
marrow and eventually organs to her sister.
A Cure for Leukemia?
A New Jersey man who seemed to be dying of
leukemia is the first patient to get an
experimental cancer treatment that uses a
defanged form of HIV. William Ludwig, then
65, is one of only three patients who have
received the bold treatment at the University of
Pennsylvania for his form of leukemia, called
CLL.
The procedure removed a billion of Ludwig's Tcells that normally fight infections and then
genetically altered them to attack his cancer
cells. The treatment uses a disabled form of
HIV1 to carry cancer-fighting genes into the
patient's T-cells to genetically alter them. The
altered T-cells would reproduce chimeric antigen
receptors that would seek out and eradicate
cancer cells.
Dr. Carl June - Pictured are immune t-cells binding to beads which cause
the leukemia cells to divide.
The results were groundbreaking. A few weeks
after administering the treatment there was no
trace of any leukemic cells in Ludwig's blood or
bone marrow. His CT scan was free of any
bulging lymph nodes. Now a year later, Bill
Ludwig is on his feet playing golf and doing
yard work. Doctors cannot say that he is
completely cured but the altered T-cells in his
blood are tailored to multiply and could fight off
any relapses in the future.
The research team led by Dr. Carl June is
optimistic about the results. Two other patients
who have undergone the treatment are in
remission. And although the treatment is still
experimental and not available outside of clinical
studies, scientists say this could be a turning
point in the fight against cancer. This new
treatment wouldn't just be for leukemia patients,
other cancers may also be treated with this new
approach. Other experts in the field hailed the
new treatment as a major advance.
"It's great work," said Dr. Walter J. Urba of the
Providence Cancer Center and Earle A. Chiles
Research Institute in Portland, Ore. "I feel very
positive about this new technology.
Conceptually, it's very, very big." But he warned
cancer patients that the new treatment still has a
ways to go and that it has to be repeated in more
patients.
Urba may get his wish as June's team is planning
on testing the treatment with other patients with
different tumors. His next goal is administering
the treatment to patients with hard-to-treat
cancers like mesothelioma and pancreatic cancer.
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