Donating stem cells or bone marrow to a relative A brother or sister is most likely to be a match. There is a 1 in 4 chance of your cells matching. This is called a matched related donor (MRD) transplant. Anyone else in the family is unlikely to match.
In certain situations, your relative's transplant team may consider using stem cells from a family member that's a half match. This is called a haploidentical transplant. Siblings have a 50% chance of being a half match, while parents are always a half match for their children, and vice versa.
People who had chemotherapy or radiation therapy or who had cancer treatment within the past five years may not be able to donate bone marrow. Chronic hip, back or spine pain, if you're receiving treatment, such as medication for it. Chronic Lyme disease. Diabetes.
If a related donor transplant is an option for you, the healthy blood-forming cells come from someone in your family. Your donor may be your brother, sister, child or parent. Your transplant doctor may ask them to come to your hospital to donate the cells for your transplant.
If you have brothers or sisters that share your same mom and dad, your transplant team may ask to test their HLA. It is very unlikely that extended family members, such as cousins, aunts and uncles, will be a match for you. It is extremely unlikely that a friend or neighbor will match you.
The best marrow transplant outcomes happen when a patient's human leukocyte antigen (HLA) and the HLA of a registry member or cord blood unit closely match. This is much more complex than matching blood types. HLA is a protein – or marker – found on most cells in your body.
Donating stem cells or bone marrow to a relative
A brother or sister is most likely to be a match. There is a 1 in 4 chance of your cells matching. This is called a matched related donor (MRD) transplant. Anyone else in the family is unlikely to match.
The question often is asked as to whether a relative other than a sibling can be used as an HLA-matched donor for BMT. There is a very small chance, about one percent, that a parent may be closely matched with his or her child and can be used in the same manner as a matched sibling.
A patient's likelihood of finding a matching bone marrow donor or cord blood unit on the Be The Match Registry® ranges from 29% to 79% depending on ethnic background.
Siblings are most often selected as a donor since they have the greatest chance (25%) of being HLA-matched with the recipient [1]. Studies examining psychological functioning in sibling donors are primarily limited to bone marrow transplant (BMT) donors.
Marrow ages, like all human systems
Doctors are concerned that marrow from a 70-year-old donor transplanted into a 20-year-old patient may fail over time. Due to these factors, the World Marrow Donor Association requires donor registries to have an upper age limit not to exceed 60 years.
Recovery from bone marrow and PBSC donation
Marrow and PBSC donors should expect to return to work, school and most other activities within 1 to 7 days. Your marrow will return to normal levels within a few weeks.
Medical guidelines for cellular therapy product donation (such as peripheral blood stem cells and bone marrow) include an assessment of body mass index (BMI), which is calculated from weight and height. There is not a minimum weight requirement.
Because children inherit 50% of HLA from them, parents are each a half-match their children. It is rare for parents to donate to their own children, or vice versa, but in recent years, new drugs have made some half-matched transplants possible for certain patients.
A 2016 study of over 6,000 adults with AML found that people who received an autologous bone marrow transplant had a 5-year survival rate of 65%. For those who received an allogenic bone marrow transplant, it was 62%.
After any testing stage, it may take up to 60 days for the patient's doctor to review the results, select a donor and decide to move forward with a transplant. If you have questions about the donation process you can find answers in Donation FAQs or call 1 (800) MARROW-2 to speak to a Be The Match representative.
To see if you are a potential bone marrow match, you will be tested to find out what type of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) you have. HLA is a protein found on most cells in your body — including those in your immune system. The closer the HLA match, the better chance that a bone marrow transplant will succeed.
If a family member cannot serve as your donor, your transplant center will begin a search for an unrelated donor. The search will include adult volunteer donors. If your transplant center performs umbilical cord blood transplants, a search of the international inventory of cord blood units will be conducted as well.
For bone marrow transplantation, a near-perfect match is required whereas for kidney transplantation, a lesser match can result in a successful, functioning transplant. For bone marrow transplantation, the blood group of the donor is not important.
Stem cells–the healthy immature blood cells used in blood and marrow transplants–are harvested from a variety of donors: self, sibling, parent, relatives or non-related individuals, or are collected from the umbilical cord blood from a related or non-related newborn infant.
Doctors look for a donor or umbilical cord blood that closely matches your HLA. But sometimes they can't find a close HLA match. Then, a haploidentical transplant may be an option. This is a type of allogeneic transplant where the donor matches exactly half of your HLA.
Only 30 percent of patients who need a bone marrow transplant have a matching donor in their families. The remaining 70 percent must hope that a compatible stranger can be found using the national registry. At any given time, about 7,500 Americans are actively searching the national registry for an unrelated donor.
For unrelated people to be a 100% match, the chances are incredibly slim, and it often takes a very long time to find a match, if one can be found at all. This factor has been a limitation for this treatment option until now. Today, a 50% stem cell match is sufficient for treatment with a chance of full recovery.”