Nick Gottardo is the director of the Department of Oncology and Hematology at the Perth Children's Hospital and director of the Theleton Kids Institute Brain Research Team.
He spoke to SBS Italian to explain what acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a cancer of the blood and the bone marrow, is.
It is the same type of tumor that 20-year-old, Italian-Australian Jordan Saccoccio was diagnosed with.
His family from Western Australia is currently searching a donor: his greatest chance of survival is to receive a bone marrow/stem cell transplant. His family and doctors have tried to find a compatible donor on the International Bone Marrow Donor Registry, but they were not able to, and according to them, there are greater chances of finding a match amongst donors with Italian ancestry.
Jordan's family appeal for donors
Italo-Australian family desperately looking for bone marrow donors
According to Nick Gottardo, to become donors is not difficult:
"It is very easy. Every city has a local branch of the international registry. They just take some of your blood and add you to the registry which is international", he said.
"If they find you compatible with a patient then they ask you if you want to donate your bone marrow to a person that could be anywhere, in America or in France maybe", he said.
For more information on how to donate bone marrow, visit the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (ABMDR) website.
