Would You Save a Life If You Could? You Can! Register to be a Potential Bone Marrow Donor!

• You don't need to give marrow to register -- just a blood sample. The National Marrow Donor Program will determine your bone marrow type from the blood sample and enter it into the national database. If you ever match a person who needs a bone marrow donation, the National Marrow Donor Program will contact you anonymously.
• It costs you nothing to register. A federal government program will pay for the cost of registering Asian, African, Latino/Latina, and Native Americans because of the critical shortage of registered donors in these ethnic groups. Members of any other ethnic group can register at no charge by donating a unit of blood at the same time that they donate the small blood sample for registration.
  
• If you "match," it costs you nothing to donate. All costs of the procedure are paid for by the recipient and/or their health insurance proram.
• Donating is safe. The procedure has been done nearly 20,000 times now and been proven safe and effective for both the donor and the recipient.
  

Common Questions About Bone Marrow Donation

• "Who's eligible to register?" A person must meet the following requirements to register: (see complete list)
  
• age 18-60 in good general health
• within the last year, has not traveled to a malarial area or gotten a new tattoo or new piercing
• no history of insulin-dependent diabetes (diet-managed is OK), heart disease, uncontrolled high blood pressure (medication-controlled is OK), HIV or HIV risk factors, serious allergic asthma (exercise induced is OK),  cancer (local skin or cervical cancer is OK), hepatitis B/C, weight over 290 pounds or Body Mass Index over 40, malaria in last three years, epilepsy in last year, or serious back problems
• willing to donate to any person who is in need
  
• "Who can bone marrow donation help?" It can save the life of people with diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, aplastic anemia, and many other conditions.
  
• "What happens if I 'match'?" After receiving education and giving your informed consent, you would undergo one of two procedures: Peripheral Blood Stem Cell (PBSC) donation, or Marrow Donation, depending on the need of the recipient.
  
• In more than half of cases, PBSC donation is now sufficient. In this procedure, the donor takes injections of a medication called filgrastim to increase the number of adult blood stem cells in his or her bloodstream. These adult blood stem cells are then filtered out of their blood by a machine a procedure that is similar to blood donation.
• In the remaining cases, Marrow Donation is performed. The donor undergoes regional or general anesthesia, and a thin needle is used to remove marrow from the donor's pelvis.