How Be The Match Saves Lives

An Edina cancer survivor gives back through Be The Match.

By: Cathy Kruse | From the issue: February 2012

Photo: Marshall Franklin Long

Lisa Korslund

When the handsome Swiss doctor told Lisa Korslund that she’d be “with him until Christmas,” the fifty-something married mother of three quipped that she’d be more intrigued under different circumstances. Instead, Korslund tried to focus on the diagnosis that the good-looking hematologist had just delivered: Philadelphia chromosome (Ph) positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)—a fast-growing cancer of the white blood cells. The protocol for this form of cancer, explained the doctor, involved three months of chemotherapy followed by a bone marrow transplant. It was June 2010 and treatment was to begin immediately.

“I was in shock,” Korslund recalls. “I had plans and things to do. It felt like a bad dream because I really didn’t have time to have cancer.”

Korslund and her husband, both engineers working for General Mills in Switzerland,

quickly created a plan to address and treat her illness. In typical fix-it fashion, they set priorities, delegated what they could, and established a broad communication system.

“We’re both global project managers,” Korslund says. “So we did what comes naturally. Fortunately we had a strong support network.”

With equal efficiency and swiftness, the Swiss medical system transferred Korslund to a special building for patients with infectious diseases and began chemotherapy two days after her diagnosis. A transplant coordinator launched the search for a bone marrow donor.

“My room overlooked the Swiss Alps and Lake Geneva,” laughs Korslund. “But because I was in isolation, the windows didn’t open, the balcony wasn’t accessible, and I had to view any flowers that arrived through glass. It was hardly relaxing.”

As Korslund progressed through chemo, the transplant search expanded internationally. Korslund’s three siblings had been checked first, but none were a match, so the next step was to attempt to secure a donor through multiple international registries. Because she is of European descent, which comprises 75-80 percent of the world’s bone marrow donor base, Korslund was hopeful that her ethnicity would result in a quick match.

Several months later, when Korslund and her family decided to move back to Edina, she continued her treatment at Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Transplant Center assumed the transplant search and was able to locate a matching donor through an overseas registry. A transplant date was set for December 2, 2010.

“There’s such a sense of relief once a donor is identified,” Korslund says. “It gives a patient the opportunity to move forward, to achieve the best chance for remission.”

One week prior to transplant, Korslund was readmitted to Mayo Clinic for a grueling pre-transplant routine that included 48 hours of chemotherapy followed by six doses of radiation. By the time the actual transplant occurred, Korslund was exhausted. But the procedure, which only required a couple of hours to perform, proved successful. Nine months later a biopsy was clean.