Word: donor
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Bone-marrow transplantation is often the last hope for people with devastating diseases: leukemia and other cancers, and certain genetic disorders of the blood, immune system or metabolism. Cure rates range from 20% to 80%, depending on the disease, its stage and the degree of compatibility between the donor's marrow and the recipient...
...American Bone Marrow Donor Registry, based in Worcester, Mass., and the National Marrow Donor Program in Minneapolis, Minn., keep computer files on about 4.4 million people worldwide who have volunteered as donors. The odds of finding a matching donor average about 1 in 20,000--better for whites, tougher for others. An estimated 30,000 bone-marrow transplants are performed each year worldwide. But it is estimated that 60,000 others needing transplants die without ever finding a donor...
Majewski and her husband first volunteered as donors 10 years ago, when a friend asked them to help a family member with leukemia. They underwent initial blood tests, known as HLA typing, for a series of four genetically determined traits that, along with two more traits tested at a second level, must closely match those of the patient for a transplant to be accepted by the body. Neither Teri Majewski nor her husband matched, but they let the American Bone Marrow Donor Registry keep their records...
...understandable choice. The institute is the leader among more than 50 in the U.S. that now practice bloodless surgery. Without using any donor blood at all, they offer a wide range of surgical procedures that would ordinarily include transfusions, along with techniques that dramatically reduce, or virtually eliminate, blood loss...
...risk of HIV infection becomes 1 in 50,000," says George Nemo, leader of a group investigating transfusion medicine at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. "If you're in an automobile accident, and you need 100 units, you're down to one in 5,000." Even when donor blood is deemed safe, if blood of the wrong group is transfused by mistake, recipients may suffer kidney failure, shock and clotting difficulties. Differences between donor and recipient platelets, white cells and plasma proteins can also cause reactions. Even donating one's own blood for use during surgery...