Go online for a free bone marrow registration kit

Easy process, simple test can save a life

Children’s Medical Center invites you to participate in the “Be The Match” bone marrow donor drive. Volunteer donors can join the registry for free. Use the promo code ‘childrens’ at www.bethematch.org (also known as the National Marrow Donor Program) until the end of March for a free kit delivered directly to your door step. Children’s is making a donation to the Be The Match Registry in lieu of each participant’s registration costs.

You can also stop by and register your tissue type from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, March 12, at the Dallas and Legacy campuses. Registering your tissue type takes only a few minutes. Read more

Adam’s story

When Adam Danhoff was little more than 5 months old, he contracted a severe type of pneumonia not usually seen in infants. The illness eventually led to a diagnosis of Hyper IgM, a rare congenital immunodeficiency disease that causes infections, liver disease and, in some instances, the development of cancers. Because the defect lies in the cells of the immune system, the only curative therapy is bone marrow transplantation.

Adam’s illness was diagnosed at Children’s Medical Center by Dr. Maite de la Morena, an immunology specialist. It also was at Children’s that Adam was fortunate enough to receive a bone marrow transplant from someone who had registered their bone marrow tissue type with the National Marrow Donor Program. The NMDP is a computerized registry of volunteers willing to donate their bone marrow to an unrelated patient.

Because tissue type is inherited, patients are most likely to match someone with their own race and ethnicity, and there is a 25 percent chance that a sibling will match. Still, like Adam, most patients do not have a suitable family member to donate. In these cases, Children’s turns to the NMDP to find a match from an unrelated donor.

The bone marrow transplant procedure rid Adam of his own unhealthy blood stem cells and replaced them with healthy blood-forming cells from the volunteer donor — essentially swapping Adam’s dysfunctional immune system for one that functions properly.

Adam will turn 4 in July, 2010. He is still in treatment, but he will not have Hyper IgM once his new immune system fully develops. He is doing well and plans to start pre-kindergarten in the fall.

Tags: bone marrow, donor, program, transplant, blood, immune system, Be The Match, National Marrow Donor Program