Why do we need bone marrow donors ?

Leukaemia is not a form of blood cancer as most people believe. It is a cancer of the bone marrow found in the cavities of the long bones, ribcage and pelvis. Every day of our lives the marrow produces red and white cells essential for life and if one of these becomes diseased the cancerous growth quickly spreads throughout the body's blood-making factory, squeezing out all the healthy blood-producing cells.

The two main categories of leukaemia are acute and chronic. The first appears suddenly and unless treated will kill the patient within weeks; chronic is more gradually, sometimes taking months even years to prove fatal.

Different types of leukaemia require different treatments.

People who suffer from leukeamia and other blood-related diseases - particularly children - often need their own bone marrow to be replaced. This means finding someone with the right match of bone marrow and then asking them to donate some of their bone marrow—- a blood-like substance - so that the leukaemia sufferer can have a transfusion - and a chance to live.

Only one in four leukaemia patients has a close relative with a matching bone marrow suitable to provide a life-saving transplant. Hope for the remainder - and each year 5000-6000 people are treated for leukaemia in Britain alone - lies with these registries of unrelated donors.

Finding the person is the difficult part - it's a needle in a haystack search! It involves searching lists of prospective donors from over 42 worldwide registers and finding a "tissue type" that matches the patient's and then arranging the bone marrow transfer.

The British Bone Marrow Donor Appeal has no operational involvement in the recruitment and testing of donors. But without its financial contribution towards the costs of testing each new donor, the NHS Registries in England and Wales would not exist today.