Ryan Ferguson with his mum and dad. Ryan had a transplant from a German donor - in nearly 50 percent of blood stem cell transplants, the donor and the patient come from different countries.
This week, Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide (BMDW) and the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA) announced that a record 25 million people worldwide are currently listed as potential volunteer marrow donors in hopes of saving the lives of those battling life-threatening blood cancers and diseases. The significant milestone gives greater hope to searching patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals around the world.
Anthony Nolan was the world’s first marrow donor registry, and we began recruiting potential volunteer marrow donors in 1974. Today, unrelated transplants are often as successful as those that use sibling donors.
BMDW was created in 1989 as a collaborative effort of eight countries and has grown to a community of 53 countries that are working together to achieve a centralized file of all potential volunteer marrow donors worldwide. This resource is crucial for patients in need of a blood stem cell transplant, because in nearly 50 percent of blood stem cell transplants, the donor and the patient come from different countries.
BMDW works closely with the WMDA—an association responsible for establishing consistent, high-quality standards for worldwide marrow donor registries—and provides a comprehensive list of potential marrow donors and donated umbilical cord blood units, primarily from WMDA member registries and cord blood banks. The BMDW global database is easily accessible to physicians to search on behalf of their patients in need of a blood stem cell transplant.
Professor Dr. Jon J. van Rood, founder of BMDW, said, “Today we celebrate a remarkable 25 million potential marrow donors on worldwide registries. Thanks to these 25 million potential volunteer donors, 250,000 patients have found their match and received an unrelated marrow transplant. But our work is not done. We need more potential donors to join registries around the world, as an equal number of patients have searched for a donor and could not find one.”
Why are more bone marrow and stem cell donors needed?
Every year, thousands of people are diagnosed with a blood cancer. A marrow or cord blood transplant is a potentially life-saving treatment for more than 70 different diseases, including leukemia, lymphoma and sickle cell disease. Other diseases include aplastic anemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, inherited immune deficiency disorders and inherited metabolic disorders.
Michael Boo, J.D., president of WMDA, was thrilled to announce the milestone.
“We are so grateful for the millions of people around the world who have volunteered to be the cure. Every person who has joined a marrow donor registry moves us closer to finding a marrow donor for every patient in need,” said Boo. “Our goal as a global community is to continue to grow this inventory of donors and cord blood units by adding more than one million potential volunteer marrow donors and cord blood units from an increasing number of countries each year,” continued Boo.
The importance of adding more potential marrow donors and cord blood units to the worldwide registries is underscored by the constantly increasing use of transplants as a treatment for a wider range of diseases. An exponential rise in all types of blood stem cell transplants, particularly from unrelated donors, has occurred since the first successful unrelated transplant in 1973.
The BMDW global database provides a unique service to transplant centres and registries searching on behalf of patients from around the world who are trying to find the best match for patients in need of a life-saving blood stem cell or marrow transplant and who do not have a matching sibling. By providing a single registry for listing all available adult volunteer marrow donors and cord blood units, it provides a quick and thorough search service, reporting on whether and where a good match can be found. In 2014, over 225,000 search requests were made for patients in need of a blood stem cell transplant.
At Anthony Nolan, we’re proud to be part of this unique international network. We now have over 500,000 people on the register, and last year we helped find a match for over 1,200 people with blood cancer and other blood disorders.
Find out more about the BMDW global database on their website at http://www.bmdw.org/