You Can Donate Stem Cells and Bone Marrow...It's Easier Than You Think!
First published on my LinkedIn here on October 22, 2020.
[Description: Infographic showing the percentage of individuals unable to find a matching donor by ethnic background: 55% for Latino, 60% for Asian American, 75% for African American, and 75% for Multi-Racial individuals, represented by colour-coded human-shaped icons.]
I recently learned that people of colour and people like me who are mixed race have an even greater struggle to find stem cell and bone marrow donors. And this scared me. Bone marrow and stem cell donations are used to help save people with blood cancers. I think in the future stem cell donations may even be used to treat more than blood cancers. I don’t have blood cancer. I also don’t have a sibling who is mixed race. I don’t personally know anyone else who is Canadian and Mexican. So what if I needed stem cells or bone marrow? I would need to rely on a donor. A donor that wouldn’t be easy to find.
The image below is from the Harvard University blog, Racial Minorities’ Trouble with Stem Cell Transplants: a dearth of donors by Jordan Wilkerson. The article shares the story of an American Filipino who has been waiting for ten years for a donor match. “Still, Viray has not found a suitable match since his diagnosis a decade ago. Instead, he has been undergoing chemotherapy — in the form of pills he takes daily…. So far, he has been on four different medications: Gleevec, Sprycel, Bosiluf, and, most recently, Tasigna.”
[Description: Infographic titled 'Be the Match Registry Members' showing the number of potential stem cell donors by racial and ethnic groups: 18,000 Pacific Islanders, 146,000 American Indian or Alaska Native, 633,000 Multiracial, 848,000 African American or Black, 939,000 Asian, 1,400,000 Hispanic or Latino, and 9,500,000 White. Includes a breakdown of Asian donors by ethnicity, highlighting smaller subcategories such as 34,000 Japanese, 66,000 Vietnamese, and 269,000 South Asian.]
Can you imagine? Ten years of chemotherapy medicine because the struggle to find a stemcell / bone marrow donor is more challenging due to your race. While my mixed race has led to some instances of discrimination, I’m typically quite lucky and experience more privilege than someone darker than me. However, this is a moment where I feel that privilege is gone, where I feel scared to be non-white. Where I think, what if there’s someone out there who is mixed like me and can’t find a donor? What if I one day need a donor?
So I dug deeper to find out what it would require to become a donor and if I was called to donate what would be needed from me. It’s surprisingly simple and doesn’t require much from the donor and will change a life. I live in the Netherlands, the nonprofit here that manages the stem cell and bone marrow donor database is called Matchis. In Canada, it’s the Canadian Blood Services. Through Matchis, I can register online and then they send me a cheek swab kit which they will use to create my DNA / match profile. I send my cheek swab to them through the post. I don’t even have to leave home to register.
Next, when/if I am called to be a donor, I would go to them for all medical steps. The big question I had was what does it take to donate? What does that look like? There website was great, it explained everything. Donating stem cells is like donating blood, a needle in the arm until a bag is full. For bone marrow a bit more complicated however they put you to sleep while they make the draw so essentially super simple from the donor end and it would only be a day at the hospital. So it’s not a big time commitment or even painful.
Here’s a fun video on it (it’s in Dutch) -
I made the decision to register.
I also decided that more people need to learn about this issue because maybe you’re like me and you didn’t know how difficult it can be. Before learning this, I thought stem cell donation would have the same requirements as blood or organ donations that it was based on blood type. That's not the case. It's based on our HLA factors which are more commonly found in those with similar racial backgrounds. "The HLA markers must sufficiently match with the patient for a viable transplant. Even some minor differences can render a donor’s stem cells not usable for the patient." (Harvard University Blog)
[Description: Illustration showing the role of HLA markers in stem cell transplantation. The top section shows a donor stem cell with markers that match the recipient's HLA markers, leading to a successful transplantation with a green checkmark. The bottom section shows a donor stem cell with mismatched markers, resulting in an unsuccessful transplantation indicated by red cross marks. The recipient's HLA markers, represented by various shapes, are displayed in the center, highlighting the importance of compatibility between donor and recipient markers.]
I hope you will consider becoming a donor and helping to spread awareness of the challenges for stem cell and bone marrow donors for those of various ethnic backgrounds.
It can literally save a life. You could literally save a life.