Minority Donors Are Urgently Needed

National Minority Donor Awareness Day is Friday, August 1. The national observance is aimed at educating minorities about the desperate need for donation and transplantation within the multicultural community. According to Donate Life America, approximately 53% of those on the national waiting list are minorities. In observance of National Minority Donor Awareness Day, Methodist Healthcare and the National Marrow Donor Program have joined forces to conduct a marrow donor registry drive.

The drive will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Central Tower main lobby at Methodist Hospital, 7700 Floyd Curl Drive. When individuals register as donors, a cheek cell swab is done for tissue typing. The standard cost of $52 for tissue typing will be waived for this event. Donors must be between the ages of 18 and 60, meet health guidelines, complete a registry form, and be willing to donate to a patient in need at the time a match is made.

On any given day, more than 6,000 men, women and children are in desperate need of a life saving bone marrow donation, and a search is conducted through the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) Registry for a donor match. These patients have leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases that can be treated by a bone marrow or cord blood transplant.

Because tissue types are inherited, patients are most likely to match someone of their own race or ethnicity. Today there are not enough registered donors of diverse racial and ethnic heritage. Donors of these backgrounds are especially needed: Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latino, and mixed heritage.

STORY IDEA

Individuals who sign up for the registry and are found to match a patient in need, could save a life. Raymond Holmes, a 66-year-old African American, was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in March 2000. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is cancer that originates in the lymphatic system, the disease-fighting network that spreads throughout the body. The prevalence of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma has been increasing in the U.S. since the 1970.

Holmes was treated with a bone marrow transplant with cells harvested from his own body in 2004. His cancer recurred. After an intense search for a donor through the National Marrow Donor Program Registry, a match was never found. “It was like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Holmes. As an alternative, he was given a double cord blood transplant at Texas Transplant Institute at Methodist Hospital in 2007. With advance notice, both Holmes and Dr. Paul Shaughnessy, his physician and hematologist/oncologist at the Texas Transplant Institute at Methodist Hospital, are available for interviews.

If you are interested in doing a story, please phone Shirley Wills at 822-2378 or 365-4488(cell) or JoAnn King, 575-0171. For media assistance during the weekend, please phone Methodist Hospital, 575-4000, and ask for the public relations representative on call.