BONE MARROW DONOR REGISTRY

The Bone Marrow Donor Registry maintained by the Blood Service contains the details of people who have volunteered to donate blood stem cells to a patient needing them. A registry member cannot choose who to donate bone marrow to. Donation is based exclusively on medical considerations.

The registry currently contains the details of some 21 000 prospective donors. Today more than 300 Finnish registry members have donated bone marrow or blood stem cells.

The registry's services are available to all hospitals in Finland and abroad. The registry collaborates closely with the world's 43 other registries, constituting a joint pool of over nine million prospective donors.

The Bone Marrow Donor Registry has been operating as part of the Blood Service since 1992.

Suitable donors from the patient's family or the registry

The patient's own family is the first option when looking for a suitable donor for a patient needing stem cells. If there is no suitable donor among family members, a search of Finnish and foreign donor registries will be made.

For Finnish patients, donors from Finland are preferred, but a transplant may also be obtained from abroad, if required. Conversely, a suitable donor for a foreign patient may be found in Finland. About one in two Finnish patients receive a transplant from a domestic donor. The suitability of a donor depends primarily on histocompatibility factors.