Bone Marrow Donation?

Question

I was reading online about bone marrow donation - this is something I would like to do. I am unable to donate blood because I don't weigh enough - they will turn me away if I try. Is there a minimum weight for bone marrow donation? What other things can a person donate?

Answer 1

You don't donate bone marrow in the same sense that you donate blood--it isn't banked.  You have to be matched with someone specific for an immediate transplant, and it is very rare to find that match--I have been on the bone marrow registry for more than 20 years now and have never been called.  But you can definitely be on the registry--that only requires a blood test--and they will call you if they need you.  Assuming you are in the US, you can start here:  http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Dono...

There are various blood products that are collected, although if you are underweight for regular blood donation, I'm not sure they'll take you for most of them.  Platelets are the one thing that springs to mind--you don't lose blood volume when you donate platelets, so you might be able to do that.  It takes longer, because they will filter out the platelets and return the rest of the blood to you, but it's very needed.

Thank you for wanting to donate!

Answer 2

Try these websites..

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/15467.cf...

http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/medicin...

Answer 3

Actual, bone marrow isnt matched be blood type at all.  It is matched by HLA (human leukocyte antigen) tissue type.  In fact, a lot of time the donor marrow is a completly different blood type than the patient.

If you want to donate, you would need to sign up for the Marrow Donors Regsitry.  You send in a dna sample (if they have a location near you you can go in and do it, if not you can order a packet that will send you the materials and instructions on how to register and send the sample via mail.  You will be asked to donate when someone needing a stem cell transplant searches the registry and finds you to be an HLA tissue type match.  You will be contacted and sent to a local hemotologist for testing to ensure you are healthy enough to donate.

There are two ways to donate hematopoetic stem cells.

One is actual bone marrow.  If you are choosen to donate actual marrow, you will likely be under general anesthsia.  Some donors do an epidural.  Either way, you are not likely to feel any pain during the proceedure but will be sore afterwards for a few days.

The other way is peripheral blood stem cell donation.  They do this using a aphersis machine.  It is the same process as selling plasma, and some red cross donations.  You will be awake, its not painful.

There are restrictions for marrow or peripheral blood stem cell donation, and you will find them at http://www.marrow.org .  However, even if you are under weight, you could still sign up for the registry as by the time you are matched with a patient, you may weight more.