Creating More Marrow Matches

Reprinted from The Marrow Foundation - Creating More Marrow Matches Through
Recruitment of Potential Donors with Diverse Tissue Types

Because tissue types are inherited, patients are most likely to find a match within their own racial or ethnic group. People of color represent only about one quarter of the total volunteer donors on the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP) Registry. Because the Registry holds fewer potential donors with the same racial or ethnic background, those communities of people are less likely than Caucasians to find potentially matched donors.

There is a special need for volunteer marrow donors from the Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native communities. And the need to recruit more Black and African-American donors is particularly acute, because their heritage tends to be the most diverse. Every new potential donor could represent a unique tissue type. However, it has been shown that minority volunteer donors add unique tissue types to the Registry at a higher rate than do Caucasian volunteers.

While volunteer donors from all racial and ethnic backgrounds will continue to be the core of the Registry, The Marrow Foundation is devoting its resources to support the NMDP's efforts to recruit more ethnically diverse donors. In this way, the NMDP can assure that the Registry more nearly reflects our nation's population.

About 30% of all patients in need of a transplant are able to find a matching donor from within their families. The remaining 70%, however, must search the NMDP Registry of donors.

The Process to Join:

When volunteers join the NMDP Registry, they are tested to determine their HLA type. A small blood sample or swab of cheek cells is collected from the volunteer donor and tested to identify which HLA markers are present. Information on each potential donor is added to the NMDP Registry, which can then be searched by physicians who are considering a transplant for their patients.