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When you're a child, you picture yourself as an adult and dream of the things you're going to achieve. There was no way I could live up to that image.
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Million chances to survive
Have you heard of stem cell donation? In the media, there are a lot of reports about seriously ill people who are saved by stem-cell therapy or who are urgently looking for a donor.
In 2017 we launched the '31 million chances campaign ’. 31 million chances represented the number of donors registered in the international stem cell bank. Today sick patients have a staggering 38 million chances to survive. 38 million chances is an awful lot.
The Belgian Bone Marrow Donor Registry manages a database that stores the tissue types of people who are willing to donate stem cells. The registry also works very closely with foreign registries to give patients a better chance of finding a suitable donor. As such, we have access to stem cells from all over the world, significantly increasing the chance of finding a match. We can help 9 out of 10 patients of Western European origin.
Unfortunately, not everyone has that many chances of finding a compatible donor. Specifically, there are very few donors of North African, Central African, Turkish or mixed origin, meaning that we are unable to help 1 in 3 patients with these backgrounds.
The Stem Cell Roadmap
Finding a donor is not as hard as many people think. There is little point searching for a stem cell donor via an urgent appeal (for example, through social media). The chances of finding a suitable donor are much higher via one of the following three steps:
Step 1: Your own stem cells
It may surprise you but the first eligible donor is the patient him or her self. A patient's own stem cells can be harvested and frozen at a time when the illness has reduced sufficiently, so that they can be given back to the patient after intense chemotherapy, for example.
Step 2: Immediate family
When your own stem cells are no longer usable, doctors check whether stem cells from an immediate family member (such as a brother, sister, mother, father, daughter, son, aunt, or uncle) can be used. The chance of finding a match with immediate family members is very high.
Step 3: The international stem cell bank
If there is no match with the stem cells from your immediate family, or you have no immediate family anymore, then we look for a suitable donor from among the Belgians who have volunteered as a stem cell donor. If we do not find a match in Belgium, then there are stem cell donors from all over the world ready to help you, giving you about 31 million chances of finding a suitable donor.
DID YOU KNOW?
We are mainly still looking for young men of foreign origin or with a mixed background.
During pregnancy, women develop antibodies against their partner (and therefore also against recipients of their stem cells.
Men between 18 and 40 are the most suitable donors.
