Why Register to Donate Bone Marrow?

Every year, thousands of adults and children need bone marrow transplants - a procedure that may be their only chance for survival. Although some patients with aplastic anemia, leukemia or other cancers have a genetically matched family member who can donate, about 70% do not. These patients' lives depend on finding an unrelated individual with a compatible tissue type, often within their own ethnic group, who is willing to donate marrow.

The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) has facilitated more than 25,000 unrelated bone marrow transplants and has over 6,000,000 marrow donors on the registry. BloodCenter of Wisconsin has more than 54,000 volunteer donors on the local registry. Still, there is a critical need for more volunteer donors.

Many patients, especially people of color, cannot find a compatible donor among those on the registry. Patients and donors must have matching tissue types, and these matches are found most often between people of the same ethnic group. A large, ethnically diverse group of prospective donors offers patients a better chance for a match, and for survival.