Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Save a life: Join the Marrow Donor Registry

By joining the National Marrow Donor Program Registry, you could literally save someone’s life. Each year, more than 30,000 children and adults are diagnosed with leukemia and other diseases for which a stem cell transplant may be the only chance for a cure. Only 30 percent of these people will find matching donors within their families.

The others will look to the National Marrow Donor Program Registry for a potential life-saving match. At any given time, 3,000 patients are searching the donor registry for a possibly life-saving stem cell donor.

One of those patients was Gregg Smith, who was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. Greg needed a bone marrow transplant and was unable to find a suitable donor among his family members. He turned to the National Marrow Donor Program and found a match. He received his life-saving transplant at City of Hope Cancer Center in Southern California.

“For many months, I was so sick, I would fall asleep at night just hoping I would wake up in the morning,” recalled Gregg. “Thanks to the unselfish generosity of my bone marrow donor, I got a second chance at life.”

“Over the last decade, the registry has grown significantly, which has enabled more patients than ever before to receive transplants for life-threatening diseases,” explained Auayporn Nademanee, M.D., associate director, Division of Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at City of Hope Cancer Center.

“In the 28 years since our first successful transplant, medical advances in this field have given thousands of people worldwide a second chance at life. But we need the public to help. To ensure that a greater number of patients will find matching donors in the future people should join the National Marrow Donor Program Registry.”

Ethnic minorities are strongly encouraged to register because they are under-represented and matching donors are usually found among the same ethnic group.

For more information on registering, call 1-800-MARROW-2 or visit www.marrow.org.