Annual bone marrow drive encourages participants to get typed to save a life
Every year, more than 10,000 patients in the U.S. are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases such as leukemia or lymphoma, and their only hope of a cure is a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated adult donor. Only half of these patients end up receiving a transplant. Children’s Medical Center and Be the Match Marrow Registry® will host the 21st annual “Be the Match” bone marrow drive, the world’s largest listing of potential marrow donors, according the organization’s Facebook page.
Volunteers from around the Metroplex are encouraged to take the first step to become a bone marrow donor by joining the national bone marrow registry. Joining is easy. Anyone between the ages of 18 and 60 can stop by throughout the day Feb. 14 at Children’s Medical Center’s Ambulatory Care Pavilion lobby in Dallas or in Children’s Medical Center at Legacy’s lobby in Plano for a quick cheek
swab, which will allow your bone marrow to be typed. Minorities are seriously under-represented in the national bone marrow registry; only 7 percent are African-American, while only 10 percent are Hispanic. A family member can only provide a positive match in about 25 to 30 percent of the cases; so many patients are in need of a stranger’s generosity for successful transplants to take place.
If you can’t make it on the 14th, you can sign up online at http://ww.bethematch.org to receive an in-home registration kit. Use the code “Children’s” to have your kit mailed to you for free. Although the special code is only good through February, you can register through http://ww.bethematch.org anytime.
