Stem Cell Donations

No, no, not for me -- not yet anyway.

The National Marrow Donor Program is making a push for donations. Through September 22nd, the fee for the testing kit is being paid for by an anonymous donor (it's about $50 otherwise). You can find out more here. Sorry I didn't hear about it sooner. Read on for more details about why this is important.

What used to be called "Bone Marrow Transplants" are now more commonly called "Stem Cell Transplants" or STC. They don't involve the politically-sensitive issue of embryonic stem cells. Everyone has stem cells in their body all the time, waiting to grow into specialized cells. In the blood, stem cells are immature cells that turn into red blood cells (which carry oxygen to the rest of the body) or white blood cells (which fight infection).

Stem Cell Transplants are basically a way of supporting chemotherapy. Essentially, they allow massive, aggressive chemo to be used. The chemo is so strong that it effectively kills off the patient's immune system. After the chemo does its job, killing off the cancer (as well as the immune system), the stem cells are transplanted into the patient, allowing the immune system time to redevelop. Without the transplant, the body would be defenseless for about a month -- plenty of time for dangerous infections to develop. With the transplant, the immune system is usually out of commission for only about a week -- much more manageable.

There are two types of Stem Cell Transplants: autogeneic and allogeneic. With the auto, the patient's own stem cells are collected and frozen before the chemo treatments begin, and put back into the blood after the chemo is finished. They result in little chance of the body rejecting them, of course, but there's the danger that some cancer might still be lingering in the stem cells. With an allo, the patient has to find a donor that is a genetic match. It's most often a sibling, but not always. (That's where the donor match program comes in.) Allos present a much greater chance of the body rejecting them, but they're usually more effective overall than autos.

The term "bone marrow transplant" is on the way out, becuase it represented an older process that involved major surgery for the donor, where bone marrow was extracted from the lower back. (Having had a bone marrow biopsy, I can only guess how un-fun the full donation process must be). That procedure is rarely done anymore. These days, it's called a "stem cell transplant" because the stem cells are extracted right from the donor's blood. It's like giving platelets: the blood is taken from the donor, put through a machine that removes the stem cells, and then pumped back into the donor. Not the major deal it used to be to donate.

Stem Cell Transplants are an important treatment for lymphomas and other blood cancers. In fact, for Follicular NHL, it's the treatment that most often results in a durable remission (what we would call a "cure" if we agreed that a cure existed). But STCs are also used in a number of other cancers that require aggressive chemo. (Yale Cancer Center does a local radio show every Sunday night, and they had a really informative program on STC. Here's the link for the full list of archived shows. You can listen or just read the transcripts.)

The process of becoming a donor (apart from actually doing the donating) doesn't seem too complicated. This video explains a little more. Consider it. It's a lot easier than donating an organ -- that's for sure. But it might have the same results.