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The Gift of Life – Bone Marrow Donations
By Neil Peterson | December 18, 2009
It is a gift that can’t be bought, boxed or bound with ribbons. It doesn’t require AA batteries or a few turns of a screwdriver. This holiday season, as thousands of children eagerly await the promise of Christmas morning, 4-year old Maya Chamberlin is waiting for something far more precious than this year’s hottest toy – a compatible bone marrow donor. Afflicted with a rare blood disease known as HLH, finding a donor is the only available treatment option to save her young life and her future – a search that is made all the more complex due to her mixed-race heritage. Maya may be too young to understand how critical her situation is – but her parents are all too familiar with the significant obstacles they – and the 6,000 other patients who access the National Marrow Donor Program registry daily – face.
Found in the interior of our bones, marrow contains stem cells that are necessary in the production of red and white blood cells, and platelets. These cells in turn are essential components of a healthy immune system – responsible for fighting infection, carrying oxygen through the body, and controlling bleeding. In patients with specific genetic or acquired diseases, the marrow is no longer able to produce these critical cells – or in some cases, can over-produce only specific types of cells, leading to a life-threatening imbalance in the body. For these patients, a bone marrow transplant is often the only course of action to fight the disease and save their lives.
Pioneered by a team of researchers at Seattle’s world renowned Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, bone marrow transplants have been used to treat a range of disorders since the mid-1960′s. The Hutchinson team, led by physician E. Donnall Thomas (who later received a Nobel Prize for his work in the field), discovered that transplanted marrow could ‘repopulate’ a patient’s diseased marrow and produce new, healthy blood cells. Though the procedure was originally developed to treat leukemia, it has also proven effective against other diseases – among them sickle-cell anemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s and autoimmune disorders.
Since the first successful marrow transplant in 1968, ongoing research has led to numerous advancements – including improved methods to more accurately determine donor-patient compatibility, a reduced risk of fatal complications, and less invasive procedures for harvesting marrow.
How to Donate Bone Marrow
Unlike blood or tissue donations which rely (in most cases) on compatible blood type, bone marrow matches are determined by HLA tissue type – necessitating a far more complex screening and matching process. (Although HLA type is hereditary, only 30% of patients will find a donor within their family.) Once a suitable donor is found, the patient undergoes a conditioning regimen – often involving a combination of chemotherapy and radiation treatments to destroy their diseased marrow and their immune system, reducing the risk of rejection and allowing the implanted marrow to ‘engraft’ and create a new, functioning immune system free of disease.
Every year, over 4,000 patients receive life-saving bone marrow transplants – but given the need for a near-identical HLA tissue type match, it is becoming increasingly difficult for patients of multiracial backgrounds like Maya to find a suitable donor. Although a recent LA Times profile brought national attention to her on-going struggle (and prompting an outpouring of social media activism via Twitter and Facebook, urging people to join the donor registry) her parents are not optimistic that they will locate an identical match. If one is not found, Maya will undergo a transplant with a partial match donor – possibly her only chance at a cure. But they hope that by raising public awareness, future patients in need of a transplant – and their families – won’t have to wait to receive the gift of life.
For information on joining the National Marrow Donor Program, please visit www.marrow.org
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