Register To Be A Bone Marrow Donor, Save A Life
DETROIT (WWJ) - Every three minutes someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer, and Karmanos Cancer Institute was the first in the state to start a bone marrow transplant program to treat this.
That was back in the 1980's — and, says Dr. Joseph Uberti, who heads up the bone marrow transplant team at Karmanos, the program is still going strong and saving lives today.
"We transplant close to 300 patients here a year," Uberti said. "We're probably one of the top ten to 15 transplant programs in the country in terms of the numbers we do. We do transplants mostly for hematologic malignancies, diseases like acute leukemia, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma."
Uberti told WWJ Health Reporter Dr. Deanna Lites that sometimes finding a donor match can be challenging, and doctors at Karmanos are working to fix that.
"We have special techniques to allow us to use donors who aren't as well matched as we've had to in the past, so this has allowed us really to find donors for everyone," he said.
Getting on the registry to become a bone marrow donor is easy. It only takes a simple blood test or a swab inside of your mouth of some cheek cells. Minorities, especially, are encouraged to become donors.
To learn more, visit this link.