A COUPLE have been plunged into fresh despair after doctors dashed hopes of a lifeline for their cancer-stricken son.

Four-year-old Joe Cawse, from Abbots Field, Barming, near Maidstone, has one of the rarest forms of leukaemia, with a typical survival rate of just two years.

He is one of only six children in the UK and 120 worldwide being treated for juvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia. It affects less than one per cent of all children developing the disease. The best hope of a cure is for Joe to have a bone transplant but, despite a search by doctors of an eight million global database of registered donors, a match has yet to be found.

His parents, Sheriden and Phil, and brothers, 10-year-old Dan and one-year-old Ben, were checked soon after Joe was diagnosed in March but tests confirmed they did not fit the bill.

Joe’s mother Sheriden went to the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, where her son receives treatment, yesterday, for results of checks on donors identified by medical staff.

None were found to be a close enough match for Joe.

Their hopes now lie with a donor clinic being run by leading leukaemia charity the Anthony Nolan Trust, from 4 to 7pm, next Tuesday, at West Borough Primary School, in Greenway, Maidstone. People visiting the clinic will be given an initial health screen and blood taken from suitable candidates.

To register as a bone marrow donor, candidates must be 18 to 40, in good health and weigh more than eight stone.

Joe’s father said: “We don’t expect there to be someone suitable living around the corner but hope against hope.”