November 1, 2005
November is National Marrow Awareness Month
Dana-Farber encourages people to become bone marrow and blood stem cell donors
Joseph H. Antin, MD
Every 15 minutes someone in the United States is diagnosed with a medical condition that requires treatment with a blood stem cell or bone marrow transplant. November is National Marrow Awareness month, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is encouraging people to help save lives by registering to be a potential donor.
More than 35,000 people in the United States are diagnosed each year with leukemias, anemias, myelodysplastic disorders and many other life-threatening diseases that require treatment with stem cell transplants. Nearly 70 percent of these patients must rely on an unrelated donor to offer them this precious gift of life.
"Finding a compatible donor is always a challenge, and certain tissue traits of the donor and the patient must match," said Joseph H. Antin MD, chief of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program and medical director of the unrelated donor program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "The best potential donor most likely comes from the patient's same ethnic group, and many minority groups are under-represented in the national registry. More donors of diverse race and ethnicity increase the opportunity that all people will have an equal chance of finding a matched donor."
Dana-Farber's Stem Cell Transplantation Program offers these patients hope through a number of treatments, including marrow grafting from family members or unrelated donors and blood stem cell transplants.
A National Marrow Donor Program Center, Dana-Farber established its Stem Cell Transplantation Program in the early 1970s, making it one of the first such programs in the world. The program is now one of the largest and busiest in the United States, and the second largest for unrelated donor transplants in the world. The program performs 300 transplants annually and has performed more than 4,500 transplants since its inception.
There is a need for donors of all races, but the need for minority donors is urgent. Because "tissue type" is inherited like skin and eye color, patients are most likely to find a match from someone of a similar ethnic background. Because individuals with minority ethnic backgrounds comprise only 25 percent of the national registry, patients from minority ethnic backgrounds are less likely than Caucasians to find a matched donor.
Joining the national registry is a simple process and requires only a small blood test, but becoming a volunteer donor is a serious commitment. Those who join the registry are asked to remain committed until their 61st birthday. They are asked to commit to donating to any patient, anywhere in the world, regardless of the patient's sex, age, race or ethnicity. This pledge can mean the difference between life and death for the patient.
"Helping to give someone's parent, sibling or child a second chance at life is a rare gift. Often there is only one matched donor in the entire world. Too often there are none," said Deb Liney, manager of unrelated donor/transplant services at Dana-Farber.
The National Marrow Donor Program recognized Dana-Farber's donor center this spring for its increase in recruitment and retention of potential minority donors. One of four donor centers in the U.S. to receive this honor, Dana-Farber remains committed to reducing cancer disparities in minority populations.
To find out more about Dana-Farber's Stem Cell Transplantation Program, please call (866) 875-3324 or e-mail nmdpdonor@dfci. harvard.edu.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a principal teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, a federally designated Center for AIDS Research, and a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, a federally designated comprehensive cancer center.
