Bone Marrow Donors Save Lives

Bone marrow, we all have it inside us.  It’s the soft spongy spongy stuff inside your bones (the same stuff you see inside a dogs bone from the butchers).  Bone marrow makes blood cells, both the red ones that carry oxygen and the white ones that fight infection.

Why would you need to replace your bone marrow?  Bone marrow transplants can be used to treat leukaemia (especially if other treatments have failed).  Chemo and radiotherapy can, in some cases, damage your bone marrow and this is another reason you might need a transplant.  A type of bone cancer, called multiple myeloma also damages your bone marrow and some people with this type of cancer can be given a bone marrow transplant.

The BBC website have highlighted a new campaign to get young people to sign up to a donor register.  In particular they are short of donors from African,  Asian, Chinese, Jewish and Eastern European descent.  However every new name on the register has the potential to save lives.

In the UK you can sign up with the British Bone Marrow Register (BBMR) through the blood transfusion service. Or if you don’t donate blood you can sign up to the Anthony Nolan Trust.

Does it hurt? If bone marrow is taken directly from your bone, then yes it can be painful and you are given an anesthetic.  However, these days most donors (more than 80%)  donate their cells through a vein in their arm, which is uncomfortable but not as bad as you might think (the technical name is peripheral blood stem cell collection).  You can read about a one man’s experience of donating on the Times website. “David Harewood: My Bone Marrow Donation” The Childrens Cancer and Leukemia Group also produce a child’s guide to bone marrow donation.

Donor matches are very “ethnic-specific”, so the chances are your Scottish, your marrow will most likely be use to help a Scottish person, or someone of Scottish ancestry.  You can read more about the efforts to recruit more Scottish donors on the Scotsman website.

Would you consider being a donor or have you already been tissue typed?