The Region - News from April 22, 1987

University of Nevada-Las Vegas cheerleader Valerie Pida, 19, underwent a painful, 1 1/2-hour bone marrow transfusion at City of Hope Hospital in Duarte as doctors sought to reverse the spread of Hodgkins disease, a form of cancer that has threatened her life for six years. A quart of marrow extracted from the hip bone of 22-year-old John Pida was transfered into the veins of his sister. Dr. Stephen Forman declined to discuss her case directly but said that if a patient can survive two years after a transplant, there is a good chance for a full life. Earlier, Forman had said that the transplant gives the girl a 20% to 30% chance of survival. Without it, he said, she had none.