Councilmember Sandra Ung joined Evelyn Yang, Christina Hsu and Dr. Richard Jacobs of Be The Match on Wednesday to announce details of a “Swab for Caryn” event that will take place on Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. in front of the entrance to Target on the fourth floor inside The Shops at SkyView.

Hsu’s sister Caryn has a rare form of leukemia and is need of a blood stem cell transplant. Her best chance of finding a suitable donor is matching with another person of Asian descent, but only 9 percent of the potential donors on the Be The Match Registry are Asian.

Be The Match is the organization that houses the information of volunteers who have agreed to be donors. Partly because of the low number of registered Asian donors, only 47 percent of Asian patients in need of a transplant ever find a suitable donor. 

“I encourage everyone to attend and put yourself on the registry, but especially members of the Asian community,” said Council Member Ung. “Take a few minutes out of your Sunday afternoon and join the thousands of people who have already been inspired by the ‘Swab for Caryn’ team and added their name to the list of potential donors.”

The test is simple and requires only a ten-second swab of the cheek. Yang has been helping Hsu organize “Swab for Caryn” events across the city.

“We have had some really successful events, collecting over 7,000 swabs in the last two months,” said Hsu. “Unfortunately we haven’t found a match yet because finding a match is very rare.”

“Every three minutes in the United States, someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer,” added Yang. “Caryn is one of thousands of patients waiting for a stem cell transplant to save their lives. This is about saving Caryn, and also about growing the registry so that none of us will have to face the terror of not being able to find a donor match for a loved one when their life depends on it.”

The ideal donor is between 18 and 40 years old. According to Dr. Jacobs, a common misconception is that a family member will be a match, but 70 percent of the time a close relative is not a suitable donor. In the case of Caryn, her sister Christina was actually a zero percent match. 

Dr. Jacobs, who is not only regional director for Be The Match but a stem cell donor himself, said another common misconception is that a transplant requires some form of surgery, but that only occurs in special cases. Jacobs said he was back at work after just a day of rest following his life-saving donation.

“If you come up as a match, 85 percent of the time the cells are obtained through your blood stream,” he said. “If anyone has ever donated platelets, it’s the same method. The old marrow donation is only done in pediatric cases and very rare cancers.”

Council Member Ung urged Flushing residents to join the Be The Match registry.

“Even if you aren’t a match for Caryn, you could potentially be a match with another cancer patient in need of a life-saving transplant,” added Council Member Ung. “What better way to mark AAPI Heritage Month than saving the life of a member of the AAPI community?”