If you could offer hope to someone dying from cancer,聽would you?
Joining the Be The Match Registry庐 means volunteering to be listed as a potential blood stem cell donor, ready to save the life of any patient in need of a transplant.
You could be someone鈥檚 cure. You could聽literally聽save a life.
All that is required is a quick registration, a cheek swab, and dropping the return kit in the mail
Sign up by text message
The Whole U page on Be The Match
Why 蘑菇视频.
This is a bold, new partnership, but one with deep ties to the 蘑菇视频 community.
Research and treatment done in collaboration between the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the 蘑菇视频鈥攊ncluding one of the first live marrow transplants鈥攚as integral to the establishment of the first marrow registry. As the first institution to be a community supporter of Be The Match, the 蘑菇视频 is excited to continue to serve in this life-saving mission.
More recently, in May 2016, 蘑菇视频 professor of sociology Alexes Harris was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer and soon learned that a marrow or stem cell transplant would be her only hope of a cure.
Two years later, after receiving a successful stem cell transplant using umbilical cord blood at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, she is living cancer free and recovering well, but the difficulty of finding a donor with a 100% matched made her realize the fight had only just begun.
Why ancestry matters.
鈥淲e immediately started research to learn about how matches were found and I discovered that finding a non-related full match is difficult if you are a person of color, especially of mixed race origin,鈥� says Harris, whose background is African American, Filipino, and Caucasian.
Having a 100% match is crucial in predicting positive outcomes post-transplant, but the percentage chance of finding a perfect match is skewed against minorities because ethnically diverse and mixed race donors are underrepresented in the registry.
While Caucasians have a 75% chance of finding a full match in the existing marrow registry, African Americans only have a 19% likelihood of finding a match and comprise only 7% of the United States registry.
Within the United States registry, the likelihood for finding a full match is higher for people of Mexican (37%), Chinese (41%), South Asian (33%), Hispanic Caribbean (40%) and Native American (52%) ancestry than for African Americans, but still significantly lower than the likelihood for Caucasians.
The good news, Harris says, is that there are tangible ways to make a real difference鈥攈ere and now.
鈥淲hen it comes to marrow donation, and other blood products and organ donation, we can make a difference,鈥� Harris says. 鈥淲e can, for ourselves, save ourselves.鈥�