Why should you care about stem cell donation?

In Australia, approximately 18,500 people will be diagnosed with a blood cancer or blood disorder each year. Chances are you’ll know someone, or know of someone, who falls in that group. It could even be you.

Of that group, there will be a portion who do not respond to chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and those people will need a stem cell transplant to stay alive.

Over 5,600 people in Australia are expected to lose their life to blood cancer or related blood disorders this year. This is equivalent to 15 people per day.

Your stem cells could be the cure for someone’s blood cancer. To find out if your stem cells could save someone’s life, you need to join the registry of volunteers willing to donate their cells to any patient in need. If this is the first you’ve heard of this, it’s because our current system for recruiting stem cell donors has just fallen in line with the rest of the world, compared to other countries. This is Fantastic news!!! Read on……

What’s a stem cell transplant?

The bone marrow in each of our bodies produces stem cells. These stem cells become the three types of blood cells (red, white, and platelets) in our bodies and are all essential for our immune systems and staying alive.

If someone’s bone marrow is diseased (like from leukaemia or a blood disorder), a stem cell transplant is often their only hope for a cure.

A stem cell transplant is when a donor - whose immune system closely matches the patient – donates stem cells, most of the time through a process that’s a lot like dialysis. The stem cells are separated from the donor’s blood and transferred to the recipient via a drip. The recipient receives these healthy, cancer-free stem cells, which develop into new bone marrow and produce healthy blood cells.

To allow the donor cells to create a new immune system, the recipient must first have very high-dose chemotherapy to destroy all existing blood-forming cells. This then means that the new cells can build without interference and go on to continue fighting cancer and keep you alive.

how do you become a stem cell donor?

To join a registry, donors need to give a small sample of their cells so the registry can work out which patient the donor will match and can donate to. The best way to provide this sample is by cheek swab. Registries around the world use swabs because they’re easy and convenient for registering donors to use – just sign up online, get a swab kit in the post, swab your cheeks, pop it back in the post, and job done.

However, to join the Australian donor registry, our governments have made it so you first have to be a blood donor, then book an appointment to make a blood donation at a special location, then ask if you can join the registry and have an additional blood sample taken. The results are then sent to the Australian donor registry, which is an entirely separate organisation - who can’t advertise to ask people to join!

Not only does this make it much harder for people to find out about let alone join, it doesn’t even make sense – you can still donate your stem cells even if you can’t be a blood donor!

Great News!!!

We are thrilled to advise that as of 27th of March 2023 the ‘Strength to give’ cheek swab recruitment drive has gone live! What a fantastic 60th birthday present for Gary.

So now Joining the Registry is so much easier and free!

there are still issues with Australia’s stem cell donor REGISTRY:

TOO FEW DONORS

Change to donor recruitment has changed recently but general awareness of this change, and how easy the process of registration remains low because there is still lack of awareness. We need at least 20,000 a year!
Without enough Australian donors, Australian patients depend almost entirely on overseas donors, trusting that the precious cells will safely make the long journey to Australia, knowing that some cell shipments will be damaged and unusable. Worse still, some Australian patients won’t ever find a matching donor overseas – our First Nations people, or those from a non-European background, are particularly likely to struggle funding a match outside of Australia. If a matching donor isn’t found, the patient will most likely die.

Why is knowlwedge of registration so low?

According to the Australian registry, the last national campaign to raise awareness about joining the registry was in the 1990’s. Back then you could only donate bone marrow through a needle in your hip under general anaesthetic – which is what people still think happens today. But times have changed; most donors donate by having their stem cells filtered out of their blood like dialysis. If more people knew about the need for donors and how easy it is to join, they would sign up.

The process for getting tested is now so much easier.

Every other country moved to swabbing their registering donors about a decade ago because it’s easier and doesn’t exclude those who aren’t blood donors but can be stem cell donors. Now the option is available in Australia!

Join now, and also You can help change how much people know of registration…

Become a donor

Are you under 35? Great! You are the most viable type of person to become a stem cell donor.
To join the Australian donor registry, you need to book an appointment to give blood at Lifeblood.
Once there, tell them that you want to be a stem cell donor, and they will take an additional blood sample.
Encourage others to become a donor

If you know people who are between 18 - 35, ask them to go and sign up to become a stem cell donor.
If you’re in that age bracket yourself, get a group together and make it a fun, group thing. It’s a beautifully altruistic act you can do that could make a huge difference to a kid like Jack.
Send this email to your state's Minister for Health

Together, we can put pressure on the government to create a workable stem cell donor system.
Below, we have crafted an email that you can copy and send to your local Minister for Health. We’ve included their name and email address, too, to make it as easy as possible for you to do this.