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African Americans encouraged to join Be The Match® registry
April 9, 2014
The Arnold School's Institute for Partnerships to Eliminate Health Disparities and the Association for Pre-Minority Pre-Health (AMPHS) Students are partners for a Be The Match® Bone Marrow Donor Drive from 10:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Monday, April 14, at the Russell House Theater.
IPEHD is seeking participation from African-American faculty and staff; AMPHS is seeking participation from African-American students.
The event follows a highly successful donor drive held April 9 as part of National Public Health Week. More than 50 people signed up to be on the Be The Match® registry that day. The event was sponsored by the Dean's Student Advisory Council (DSAC).
A patient’s likelihood of finding a matching bone marrow donor or cord blood unit on the Be The Match Registry® ranges from 76 percent to 97 percent depending on race and ethnicity. Because the markers used in matching are inherited, patients are more likely to match someone from their own ancestry. Currently, 7 percent of the registry is African Americans. Even with a registry of millions, many African-American patients cannot find a match.
For those diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases, such as sickle cell disease, a bone marrow transplant may be a person's best or only hope for a cure. Yet 70 percent of patients who need a transplant to do not have a matching donor in their family. They depend on Be The Match® and individuals on the registry to find a match to save their life.
Over the past 25 years, Be The Match®, operated by the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP), has managed the largest and most diverse marrow registry in the world.
Robin Roberts, Good Morning America TV anchor, underwent a bone marrow transplant when she was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS), a disease of the blood and bone marrow. MDS was once known as preleukemia.
When the popular television personality announced that she had MDS, Roberts said, "Bone marrow donors are scarce and particularly for African-American women. I am very fortunate to have a sister who is an excellent match, and this greatly improves my chances for a cure. … Many people don't realize they can be bone marrow donors. I encourage everyone to sign up on a donor registry like bethematch.org."
Signing up to be on the registry involves no needles, no invasive procedures. Just four Q-tip type swabs inside the mouth are the first step toward possibly saving a person's life!
