How Do I Register To Donate Bone Marrow

Becoming a Bone Marrow Donor at UCLA

Most healthy individuals age xviii to 44 could be potential blood and marrow stalk cell donors. For some people, finding the correct donor for a bone marrow transplant may be their but promise for a cure. UCLA Health helps bone marrow transplant recipients, their families and donors empathise the process and the risks – and find the right match.

The National Marrow Donor Program runs a bone marrow registry. Potential donors can join, be tested and add their names to listing of people willing to donate os marrow to anyone in need. Whether yous want to become part of the bone marrow registry or donate to a relative, the donation process is the same.

How to donate os marrow

For a bone marrow transplant to exist successful, the donor and the recipient have to exist well matched. Unlike matching claret types, matching bone marrow stem cells is a flake more complicated.

To see if you are a potential bone marrow match, you will be tested to find out what blazon of homo leukocyte antigen (HLA) you have. HLA is a poly peptide found on most cells in your trunk — including those in your immune system. The closer the HLA match, the meliorate chance that a bone marrow transplant volition succeed. Os marrow produces the infection-fighting white blood cells that are key to a functioning immune arrangement.

The good news is that you don't have to really donate bone marrow to observe out if you're a match. The process starts with a simple cheek swab to provide a sample of your DNA. If you are a basic match for a recipient based on that examination, yous'll have additional blood tests or cheek swabs. Those results will give doctors more than details well-nigh your HLA type.

If you lot would like to be tested as a lucifer for a relative who is beingness treated at UCLA Health's Blood and Os Marrow Transplant & Cellular Therapies Plan, contact united states. The patient'south doctor will arrange all of your testing and respond any questions y'all take near condign a donor. Discover out more most how a recipient prepares for bone marrow transplant.

Bone marrow donation procedure

If you are a lucifer for someone needing a transplant, you will start the process of altruistic bone marrow stem cells. This procedure is the aforementioned whether you lot are donating for a relative or for someone using the National Marrow Donor Plan registry.

Before your donation, you lot will spend a couple of days undergoing a consultation that includes:

Thorough wellness evaluation
Medical history
Blood tests
Filling out consent forms
Meeting with doctors well-nigh the donation procedure

How stem cells are extracted

There are 2 ways to obtain the stalk cells used in a bone marrow transplant. The transplant recipient'due south md will determine which method is best for his or her condition. The two procedures are:

Bone marrow harvesting: Doctors use needles to withdraw liquid os marrow from both sides of the back of your pelvic bones. This is a surgical procedure that unremarkably takes i hour. Yous will receive anesthesia so that you feel no hurting during the extraction. Most people go home from the hospital that same mean solar day, merely some donors stay overnight for observation.
Apheresis: Apheresis is a nonsurgical, outpatient process. Instead of collecting bone marrow, it allows for collection of peripheral blood stem cells.

Preparation: For five days before apheresis, you will get injections of filgrastim. This drug stimulates your bone marrow to make more stem cells and release them into your bloodstream.
Procedure: On the twenty-four hours of the donation, expect to spend upwards to viii hours at the drove facility. A catheter (thin, flexible tube) is placed in a large vein in your arm. The blood will flow into a motorcar that separates the stem cells from the claret. A catheter in your other arm transfers the remaining blood back to your body.

Os marrow donation recovery

Equally yous fix to donate, you may be worried about possible os marrow donation risks. The vast majority of donors feel few side furnishings — most of which are mild. Near donors written report feeling completely recovered within a few weeks of their donation.

The side furnishings will vary depending on the type of donation procedure you had:

Side effects of os marrow harvesting:

The nigh common side effects of bone marrow harvesting are related to anesthesia. If you have general anesthesia, you may experience nausea or airsickness. If you have regional anesthesia (such as an epidural), you may have headaches or a decrease in blood pressure. There is a very small risk of having harm to os, nerves or muscles in the pelvis during the extraction procedure.

Side effects of apheresis:

Common side effects from the filgrastim injections include headache, os or muscle aches, nausea, fatigue and insomnia. These typically diminish chop-chop after y'all stop taking the medication. During the donation procedure, you may have chills, tingling around the mouth, fingers and toes and muscle cramps. Your care team tin can slow downwardly the procedure to help reduce these symptoms.

Joining the national bone marrow registry

The registry needs donors of all races and ethnicities to provide the best matches for the almost patients. They accept donors between the ages of xviii and 60. Only because bone marrow transplant is most successful with younger donors, people ages 18 to 44 are preferred.

Donors must be in excellent wellness. Certain diseases, medications, treatments and weight limits tin can exclude y'all from becoming a donor.

For more details almost medical qualifications and how to donate bone marrow, go to Be The Match.

Contact us

If you are interested in altruistic bone marrow to a relative in our intendance, please contact our Adult Blood and Os Marrow Transplant & Cellular Therapies Plan at 310-206-6909.