The World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA) is holding its annual conference in Singapore from 30 May to 2 June. Nicola Alderson, Director of Operations at Anthony Nolan, is speaking at a symposium titled ‘Time is of the essence: How can we hasten the time from search initiation to transplantation?’ Here, she outlines how Anthony Nolan is speeding up the time it takes to find a donor.
Time is absolutely crucial when it comes to stem cell transplants. The time it takes to find a matching donor, send them for confirmatory tests, schedule the transplant and get the patient and donor ready all adds up, and the shorter this process is the better. Any delays with a transplant can mean a patient becomes even more ill, making it less likely that they will have the best possible recovery. In addition, it is very common for the person who donates their blood stem cells to be in a different location from the patient who will be receiving them. As a result, stem cells often need to be transferred across long distances, sometimes between continents.
Working with the WMDA and other organisations
With this in mind, Anthony Nolan is always looking for ways to speed up the time from the initial search for a donor to the transplant day itself. The first step to securing a timely transplant is making sure there is good communication between the transplant centre – the hospital which deals with the patient and decides a transplant is necessary – and the stem cell registry. In 2013, we made a big step forward in streamlining this process by aligning the different UK stem cell registries – the Anthony Nolan register, the British Bone Marrow Registry and the Welsh Bone Marrow Donor Registry, and now also Delete Blood Cancer – so that they could be searched in one, rather than doctors making separate requests to each individually. Now, we need to apply the same attitude to each stage of the transplant process and make communication between transplant centres and registries as efficient as possible.
Of course, improving communication between transplant centres and registries is only part of the solution, and any transplant would be impossible without a donor. If a donor is no longer available, or their contact details have changed and we can’t get in touch with them, this can add days or even weeks to the search process. That’s why Anthony Nolan works hard to make sure our donors are contactable by keeping in touch every few years and asking people to let us know if their details change. We also try to keep the donor as informed as possible if they have been chosen as a potential match, and give them realistic timeframes for when their donation could take place.
Our lifesaving research
Finally, Anthony Nolan is investing in speeding up how quickly it can search and sequence donor DNA, to make sure donors are available for matching as soon as possible. In January we became the first national registry in the world to use Third Generation Sequencing (TGS) technology to tissue-type donors. This not only makes the results more accurate than ever before, we also hope it will make it faster to process new additions to the register. We’re confident that this innovation will lead to better outcomes for transplant patients.
Reducing the time between searching for a donor and performing the transplant is part of Anthony Nolan’s aims for the next two years. We want to make sure that we can find a donor for everyone who needs a transplant in the quickest time possible, giving people with blood cancer a second chance at life.