BBC bosses launch Save Our Sue bid for reporter hit by cancer
THE BBC has appealed for stem cell donors to save the life of an award-winning reporter struck down by aggressive leukaemia.
Investigative journalist Sue LloydRoberts, 62, says it is ‘a race against time’ to have a cell transplant.
Her search for a donor was highlighted yesterday on the official BBC News UK Twitter account, which is followed by 4.3million people.
Miss Lloyd-Roberts, who was the first reporter into the besieged city of Homs in Syria, was diagnosed in January after collapsing at her home in Majorca.
Tests revealed she had myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS, a blood disorder that had developed into leukaemia, which affects 8,600 Britons each year.
After two rounds of chemotherapy at University College Hospital in London, her chances of beating the severe form of the disease, called acute myeloid leukaemia, depend on a stem- cell transplant, in which she receives bone marrow cells from a donor with the same tissue type.
But because there are millions of tissue combinations, finding a match can be complicated.
Her family are not a match, so she needs the help of a stranger.
A transplant was lined up last month but the donor failed medical tests and the operation was cancelled at the last minute. Miss Lloyd-Roberts said yesterday: ‘It was very unlucky and the doctors were as disappointed as me. I have been mired in hell for six months.
‘The kind of leukaemia I have means I need a stem cell transplant to survive. It is vital. I was mightily annoyed when I discovered what I had because I have always been a fitness fanatic. But I believe in getting on with it.
‘It is a race against time to have the transplant before relapsing, which would make the prognosis worse. It’s a long shot but what they are doing at the BBC may help. I’m very grateful. If a donor comes forward I will be ecstatic. I am overwhelmed by the support from the BBC and colleagues. I am quite tearful about it.’
After her diagnosis, Miss LloydRoberts flew back from Majorca, where she runs a rural hotel with her husband Nick Guthrie, a BBC producer, to her home in Islington, North London.
She has had to give up work while she is treated.
Colleagues such as Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis have appealed to their own Twitter followers to help find a donor.
The Anthony Nolan Trust blood cancer charity will visit the BBC’s London HQ on Monday so staff can give saliva swabs to see if they could be a match.
Miss Lloyd-Roberts began her career at ITN. She received the European Women of Achievement Award in 1995 and won an Emmy in 2011 for reporting from North Korea. She is now a special correspondent for the BBC, often reporting for Newsnight.
In a blog about her illness, she said: ‘It could be worse. I could be a woman living in Saudi Arabia..., an inmate in a North Korean concentration camp or a refugee in an over-crowded dinghy sailing from Libya.’ ÷ Visit www.anthonynolan.org if you are interested in becoming a stem cell donor.
‘I have been mired in hell’