Hospitals seeking bone marrow donors

Two area hospitals are appealing for bone marrow donors, especially those of Hispanic, African-American and Asian racial and ethnic backgrounds.
North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park will be hosting bone marrow stem cell recruitment drives on Monday and Tuesday, March 19 and 20.
“Of the 35,000 adults and children diagnosed every year with leukemia and other life-threatening blood diseases for which a marrow or blood stem cell transplant could be a cure, only 2,500 find a match and receive a transplant,” Ruthee-Lu Bayer, MD, director of the North Shore-LIJ Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplantation Program said.
“The problem with bone marrow stem cell transplants is that they require matching tissue types between a patient and donor. These tissue types are inherited, but 70 percent of patients do not have a matched donor in their family.”
A transplant replaces a patient’s unhealthy blood cells with healthy blood-forming cells from a volunteer donor.
The recruitment drive is being coordinated by the Icla Da Silva Foundation, a New York City-based, non-profit group dedicated to helping children with leukemia. The foundation is focused on minority communities because of six million people in the national bone marrow registry, only seven percent are Hispanic, eight percent are African-Americans and even fewer are Asian-Americans. Among Hispanics, there is a one-in-20,000 chance that a match will be found between a donor and recipient.
Prospective volunteer marrow donors must fill out one form for contact and medical information as well as a consent form. There is no need to give blood; all that is necessary is a cheek swab. The entire process takes about 15 minutes.
Marrow donation is a surgical procedure performed in a hospital. While the donor receives anesthesia, doctors use special, hollow needles to withdraw liquid marrow from the donor’s pelvic bones. A donor’s marrow is completely replaced within four to six weeks.
The bone marrow stem cell recruitment drive will be held from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on March 19 in North Shore University Hospital’s Tower conference room 2 located at 300 Community Drive in Manhasset and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on March 20 at the LIJ Staff House at 270-05 76th Avenue in New Hyde Park in the 3rd floor conference room 306.
For more information, please call 516-734-8907 or go to www.Marrow.org.