The donor quest for the Leukemia patient Öykü Arin continues. For Öykü, 3.5-year-old living in Izmir, stem cell donation campaigns launched in Turkey has spread to the world. We have also compiled important things to know about stem cell and bone marrow donation.
When the campaig spread all over the world, the exciting news came from Brazil for Öykü. However, the results turned negative when the 70 percent matched donor was subjected to the other tests. Öykü's mother Eylem Şen says, there should be a 100 percent match for the transplantation of bone marrow. The number of donors in Turkey is very low yet they started working on stem cell donation in several cities.
What is stem cell and bone marrow transplantation?
The first method of choice in children with leukemia is drug treatment. Chemotherapy results in 85 percent improvement, but there may be patients who do not respond to this treatment. In such cases, bone marrow transplantation may be required.
The purpose of bone marrow transplantation is to transfer the stem cells that provide cell production from a healthy individual (donor) to the patient with leukemia. Stem cell is the name given to the original cells, which allows each tissue in the body to form, multiply and repair.
Requirements for being a donor
Healthy individuals between the ages of 18 and 60 may donate. Individuals of 18 to 44 years old tend to produce more and higher quality cells than older individuals. According to Be The Match, the world leader in bone marrow transplantation, doctors choose donors from 18 to 44 years of age with a 95 percent rate.
Another point to note is whether you have diseases that prevent you from donating. If you have one of the following diseases, you cannot become a donor.
● Autoimmune diseases
● Bleeding disorders
● Heart diseases
● AIDS
If you have one of the following conditions, you should make sure to tell the specialists before you donate stem cells. In this case, you can decide whether you are a donor or not.
● Drug or alcohol addiction
● Diabetes
● Hepatitis
● Some mental health problems
● Early cancer without chemotherapy and radiation
How is the process to become a donor?
To be able to donate stem cells to a cancer patient, your tissues need to be compatible with the patient's tissue characteristics. If you want to become a donor, you should go to the nearest Red Crescent Blood Donation Center and state that you want to be a stem cell donor. When you give blood after filling the stem cell donation form, you are taking the first step for stem cell donation. The Ministry of Health is contacting you and you need to decide whether you should donate as a potential life saver if there is no possible obstacle, such as pregnancy.
If the donor’s and the patient’s tissue match, both the donor and the patient undergo an operation in the operating room conditions. By entering into the bone with special needles, the marrow is pulled into the injectors and the stem cells are taken into special bags and the leukemia patient is injected via the vein.
Since a small number of stem cells are extracted from the donor, this operation has no drawback for donors. The amount of stem cells taken from the body is about 5 percent of all bone marrow. Within two weeks, the body reproduces the bone marrow completely.
Success rate of bone marrow transplantation
