Bone Marrow Transplants

[jauble]

My brothers' friend is looking for a transplant so I signed up. Anyone who is interested in donating please got to http://www.marrow.org/index.html to join the national registery. I believe there is a 52 dollar charge to get your intial testing supplies (cheek swab stuff) but after that there is no cost. This is a good chance to help out someone you dont know so please check it out.

[Thebazile78]

You can also see if there are any marrow testing drives in your area to cut down on costs. The website should have information about drives in your area.

I've been considering joining the marrow registry myself ... I have a friend in WI who has leukemia (as a result of treatment for breast cancer) and my great-aunt Betty died from leukemia about 15 or so years ago.

[drjoek]

We have had a couple of local people who needed this so I am already in the marrow registry. They actually found a match for one guy here so everyone get out there and do this.

:thumbup:

[Freakshow]

I sumbitted to the Gift of Life registry after Penn Gillette spent an entire show talking about it (his shows were only an hour, though).

I guess I haven't matched anyone, this was a couple of years ago.

[Mike Teacher]

I didnt know anything about bone marrow transplants until the late Carl Sagan revealed he had been undergoing the treatment, twice I think, sister donor, for myelodysplasia [sp?].

He wrote at length of the experience in one of his books, mostly about the sacrifice of others who donate, and how lucky he was to match his sister so well.

I'm still pretty clueless about it.

[CofyCrakCocaine]

Whatever happened to that guy who was going to swap his marrow with that of a baboon's back in the 90's? I saw one special about him in HS science class and then nothing.

[Thebazile78]

I didnt know anything about bone marrow transplants until the late Carl Sagan revealed he had been undergoing the treatment, twice I think, sister donor, for myelodysplasia [sp?].

He wrote at length of the experience in one of his books, mostly about the sacrifice of others who donate, and how lucky he was to match his sister so well.

I'm still pretty clueless about it.

Bone marrow transplants are a multi-stage process.

The recipient undergoes a series of chemotherapy or radiation treatments which effectively "kill" his or her marrow cells and suppress his/her immune system (reduces chances of rejection of the donor cells)
The donor is given drugs to increase his or her production of marrow cells.

On the day of donation, the marrow is extracted from the donor with a large syringe, usually from the hip (because this is one of the sites in the skeleton that has the highest concentrations of marrow) and the marrow is run through a centrifuge to extract the stem cells, which are then transferred to the recipient, usually through a central line catheter.

The stem cells can also be harvested using a newer procedure (aphoresis) that's more like a platelet donation.

[CofyCrakCocaine]

Bone marrow transplants are a multi-stage process.

The recipient undergoes a series of chemotherapy or radiation treatments which effectively "kill" his or her marrow cells and suppress his/her immune system (reduces chances of rejection of the donor cells)
The donor is given drugs to increase his or her production of marrow cells.

On the day of donation, the marrow is extracted from the donor with a large syringe, usually from the hip (because this is one of the sites in the skeleton that has the highest concentrations of marrow) and the marrow is run through a centrifuge to extract the stem cells, which are then transferred to the recipient, usually through a central line catheter.

The stem cells can also be harvested using a newer procedure (aphoresis) that's more like a platelet donation.

Um, all I have to add is er... calcium makes bones stron!

[scottinnj]

I have a freind who is in full remission from bone cancer. She went to Edison, had some of her bone marrow removed, and her stem cells were "washed" and replaced. They put the clean marrow back in, but it didn't work. So they figured it was something in her genetic code that was triggering the cancer, so they repeated the process, only the second time, replaced the stem cells with those from her sister.

Voila! It worked!

The way the doc described it was rebooting a computer that had a virus, and before the operating system began its startup, running an anti-virus program that repairs the registry where it became corrupt.

That's the easy explanation. It took thousands of dollars, a lot of pain for both my friend and her sister, and over a year of work, along with the conventional treatments to keep the cancer in check while the fancy stuff was going on in the lab.

[PapaBear]

When Rick Hendrick needed a transplant, they started putting the phone number for the bone marrow registry in view of the in car cameras in NASCAR. I can't remember the numbers, but they said the number of people who registered went WAY up. Of course, now that he's fine, I don't think any of the cars have the number on the dashboard anymore.