COLLEAGUES HOLD MARROW DRIVE; MAN'S VALENCIA CO-WORKERS STAGE EVENT TO SEARCH FOR MATCH.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Bone-marrow testing and a blood drive will be held today on behalf of a 67-year-old man recently diagnosed with leukemia and undergoing chemotherapy to slow the progress of the life-threatening illness.

Co-workers at Paragon Precision Products will roll up their sleeves beginning at noon to help out Jeff Zertuche, a tool and die maker at the Valencia plant, which has 140 employees and manufactures components for the space shuttle and the aerospace industry.

The company hopes the general public also will respond to the plea. The event will run until 5 p.m. at Paragon Precision Products, 26150 W. Technology Drive.

Zertuche, an Arleta resident who has worked at Paragon for three years, needs a bone-marrow transplant as well as blood transfusions, said Tim Smith, blood donor recruiter for the Ralph M. Parsons Blood Donor Center of Providence Health System.

The Parsons center handles blood collection for Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills and Sherman Oaks Hospital and Health Center. Medical staffers from City of Hope will conduct the bone-marrow testing.

Zertuche, a father of seven with 16 grandchildren, is hospitalized at Holy Cross. He became ill about a month ago, said Lucy Cardenas, Paragon's human resources director.

``He wasn't feeling well . . . and the doctors couldn't figure out why he was tired,'' Cardenas said.

The drive was organized in response to reports from his family and doctors that Zertuche needed blood and a marrow donor. His blood type is A positive, the second most common, but Smith said all donors are welcome because units of other blood types will be used to replenish the supply at the Parsons blood bank.

Zertuche has been through many units of blood because chemotherapy damages the body's healthy red blood cells while attacking the diseased white cells produced when a patient is racked by leukemia.

Meanwhile, medical staff members will register prospective bone-marrow donors. The initial screening entails drawing two small vials of blood for testing of human leukocyte antigens, said Charif Masri, supervisor of the National Marrow Donor Program at City of Hope.

``Chemotherapy is such a heavy drug that it destroys (the patient's) own cells. It not only kills the tumor cells, it also kills the cells in the bone marrow,'' Masri said.

Leukemia is the overproduction of white blood cells, at the expense of red blood cell and platelet production, Masri said.

Nationwide, 3,000 people are awaiting bone-marrow transplants, and generally donor-recipient matches are among people of the same ethnic or racial background. Tissue-typing tests, similar to those for organs used in transplants, must be conducted, he added.

``Since 1986, the National Marrow Donor Program has facilitated more than 7,600 bone-marrow transplants,'' Masri noted.

``When somebody needs a bone-marrow transplant, that's because all traditional treatment has failed,'' he said, alluding to radiation and chemotherapy. ``The last hope for survival for the patient is a bone-marrow transplant.''