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Why Join the Donor Register?

Every year thousands of children & adults with fatal bone marrow diseases, like Leukaemia, lymphoma and other blood related disorders reach a stage when their only hope of survival is a blood stem cell transplant from a donor who shares the same ‘tissue type’.

Although family members, mainly siblings may offer the best match, unfortunately most patients do not have a suitable sibling match and are reliant on an unrelated donor to offer them the chance of life.

Genetic makeup is incredibly varied and we match on inherited characteristics - ‘tissue types’, which is different to blood grouping. The likelihood of finding a matching donor is considerably greater if the donor is from a similar ethnic background as the patient. Due to shortages of donors from various ethnic backgrounds it can be much more problematic locating matches for some patients.

As the size of the register grows so does the chance of finding an exact tissue type match for more patients. It is vital that we do all we can to increase the size of the register to help ALL patients in need.

All that is needed from you is a small sample of blood. You may turn out to be a matching donor – with the same tissue type as the patient’s. It will cost you nothing to join the BMDP Register, but not acting quickly enough could cost someone their life.

We have, over the years been associated with success stories. But we need a lot more and You can help. We particularly need pledges from people from minority ethnic backgrounds, aged 17 to 49 to join the bone marrow register.