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Why I donated my bone marrow

When I received a letter this summer from Be The Match, I didn't know what would come next. I just knew that I was being presented with the opportunity to save a life.

I knew that no matter how much time and money I did or did not donate to nonprofits and charities doing important work, this was different. Here was a patient with a blood cancer whose particular immune system resembled my own. Turns out I, among potentially everyone in the world, was in the best position to save her life.

It's an awesome responsibility and opportunity. Now that I've been through the entire experience, including the ominous-sounding…

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Featured

 New Promise for Bone-Marrow Transplants

Companies hope advances will make the procedure safer and more effective—as well as useful against more diseases.

Articles of Interest

A Woman’s AncestryDNA Test Revealed a Medical Secret

As a cancer patient, she had received cord-blood cells from an anonymous donor. The DNA from those cells led her to him.

An Urgent Mission to Speed Progress Against Cancer

She was treated with two new drug therapies and then received a stem cell transplant, which involves getting an infusion of cells harvested from bone marrow—either your own or someone else’s—that can become different kinds of blood cells. (She got stem cells from her sister.) Since then, Ms. Giusti’s cancer has remained in remission, with the help of follow-up donor infusions from her sister.

Bone marrow transplant facts

Bone marrow transplantation is among the greatest success stories in cancer treatment. It has boosted survival rates from nearly zero to more than 85 percent for some blood cancers. Newer options — such as reduced-intensity transplants, haploidentical transplants and cord blood transplants — have made transplants available to many more people who need this potentially life-saving treatment.

Bone marrow transplant is in need of innovation. Here’s why

In the more than 60 years since that study, the scientific community has made tremendous strides in improving bone marrow transplant. But there is still a significant need to make this potentially curative treatment option available to more patients around the world.

Five Blood Transfusions, One Bone Marrow Transplant — All Before Birth

Bone marrow is considered a potential cure because it teems with stem cells, which can create replacements for cells that are missing or defective as a result of genetic flaws. “This line of work moves the field of fetal surgery, which currently consists of big operations for anatomic disorders, in a new direction of molecular and cellular therapies given non-invasively,” said Dr. Tippi MacKenzie, a pediatric and fetal surgeon...

Resources

Anthony Nolan

In one sense, all we do is connect people. We connect one person, whose immune system needs a boost with another person, who is prepared to share a little of theirs. Matching patients with donors.

Be The Match

For people with life-threatening blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma or other diseases, a cure exists. Be The Match® connects patients with their donor match for a life-saving marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant.

BMTSupport.org

Our mission is to uphold those who suffer the effects of illness before, during and after transplant, to celebrate the miracles that BMT has given in the lives of those of us who are now well, and to offer encouragement.

HRSA

Expanding access to life-saving bone marrow and cord blood transplants

National Bone Marrow Transplant Link

This site is designed to help patients, their caregivers and families understand and deal with the emotional and practical aspects of transplants and post-transplant concerns.

American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation

The American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation is a national professional association that promotes advancement of the field of blood and bone marrow transplantation. ASBMT members are both in clinical practice and in research.

Bone Marrow Transplantation

Bone Marrow Transplantation is a high quality, peer-reviewed journal covering all aspects of clinical and basic haemopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Bupa

This factsheet is for people who are having a bone marrow or stem cell transplant, or who would like information about it.

CancerGuide

Bone marrow transplants are complex, difficult, risky, often controversial, procedures which can be lifesaving. This is also an area in which the technology is constantly changing.

Children's Cancer Web

BMT has been widely used to treat specific cancers in children such as leukaemia, lymphoma, and neuroblastoma. It is still being evaluated for the treatment of some other types of cancer. There are various potential side effects associated with transplantation, these will largely depend on how well matched the donor's cells are to the patient's cells.

European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation

The EBMT aims to promote all aspects associated with the transplantation of haematopoietic stem cells from all donor sources and donor types including basic and clinical research, education, standardisation, quality control, and accreditation for transplant procedures.

Mayo Clinic

The BMT program follows the Mayo Clinic vision of a unified system on multiple campuses. The transplant teams at all three clinic sites use similar policies and procedures and participate in identical research protocols. The bone marrow transplant program at Mayo Clinic is one of the most experienced in the world.