Organ donation – an uncommon gesture

THIS year, the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR) is celebrating 25 years of successfully securing bone marrow stem cell transplants for 383 patients.

Approximately 30% of patients find a match within their families whilst the other 70% rely on finding a match from an unrelated donor to provide them with the chance of survival.

The SABMR currently has 72 000 registered bone marrow donors on its database and the chance of finding a match for a patient diagnosed with a blood disease is one in 100 000, which makes South African based donor recruitment essential.

Dr Charlotte Ingram, Medical Director of SABMR says bone marrow is the tissue that produces red blood cells to carry oxygen, white blood cells to fight infection and platelets to prevent bleeding – all required to sustain life.

‘The transplanted cells taken from the donor replace the recipient’s cancerous cells that have been destroyed by chemotherapy and these healthy cells then produce the new red and white blood cells, as well as platelets.’

While blood diseases are not limited to age, gender or race, the ethnic background of a donor is crucial to finding the perfect match.

The ethnic origin of a match plays a significant role as a match is based on inherited genetic characteristics which are often associated with a particular race group and not on blood types.

Through association with the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA) and participation in Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide (BMDW), the SABMR has access to 28 million donors worldwide, but getting stem cells from international donors is very costly.

‘Since using an overseas donor is expensive, patients who cannot find a local donor may not be able to afford a bone marrow transplant from an international source – making their chance of survival slim,’ says Dr Ingram.

‘We need more South Africans to register so we can save more lives, and we are in desperate need of more Black donors. In 2015, there were 150 preliminary donor search requests for patients needing a bone marrow transplant.’

She says 50% of the referrals were for patients who are Black, Coloured or Asian whilst only three out of the 25 patients transplanted in that year, were in this group.

How can I become a donor?

The process of donating bone marrow is very similar to donating blood platelets.

Blood, drawn via a needle in one arm, gets filtered through a cell separator machine which deposits bone marrow stem cells into a bag.

The rest of the blood is returned via a needle in the other arm.

This process takes about four to six hours and might need to be done over two consecutive days.

The bag of stem cells will then be used to perform the patient’s life-saving bone marrow stem cell transplant.

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