Hawaii leads way
in transplantsA Hawaii system that identifies
donors more quickly is now
being used elsewhere
A system developed in Honolulu is being adopted across the country to more rapidly find bone marrow donors for transplant patients.
"There's a big lag time, even at the fastest a six-week turnaround time, from when a transplant center needs a donor and the time a donor can be produced for a transplant," said Dr. Randal Wada, medical director of the Hawaii Bone Marrow Donor Registry. "Many patients are in such tenuous positions that they don't have that six weeks' time to wait."
To donate
If you are interested in becoming a bone marrow donor, contact:Hawaii Bone Marrow Donor Registry
St. Francis Medical Center
2228 Liliha St. Suite 102-B
Honolulu, HI 96817-1651547-6154
877-HI-DONORSeventeen donor centers are trying the new search method developed here, Wada said.
In the usual process, when a doctor requests a donor search, the National Bone Marrow Program identifies people from its donor file with close matches to the patient.
Multiple searches may be requested to find potential matches, then a more formal search is done to locate and test potential donors chosen by the doctor, said Rosey Vera Cruz, the Hawaii registry's search coordinator.
Under the new method, instead of waiting for the formal search, Wada's team uses preliminary search data to find and confirm availability of possible donors identified in the Hawaii registry and get blood samples.
This focuses staff time on donors with the best chance of being called as a preliminary match, Wada said. "If we can't find them, we can take them off the registry so we don't provide false hope to a patient."
Wada recently received the National Bone Marrow Program's Network Innovation Award for the time-saving process.
Last year, the Hawaii registry had 65,000 potential bone marrow donors.
Vera Cruz hunts for those turning up on preliminary search lists from Hawaii, American Samoa and Guam.
People often sign up for the registry "because it's an emotional thing or they have a family member involved," she said.
"They don't realize the implications or ramifications of it," she said, and they say "no" when called up to donate.
Family members here often want to test only for Hawaii patients, but the Bone Marrow Donor Registry represents patients worldwide, Vera Cruz said.
"There would be no transplants if they all said 'no stranger,'" she said.
She said "a lot of detective work" is involved searching for donors because they may have moved, suffered a medical disability or had other changes affecting their donor status, she said.
The registry is given one month to find a donor chosen as a potential match in an active search. The new process has cut that time to less than 15 days, she said.
People often are confused and shocked when alerted they are a potential match, she said. "They think, 'My God, I'm going to be admitted tomorrow.' That isn't the case.
"You have better chances of winning a lottery than becoming a preliminary match," she said. "So any time a donor is contacted, it's a big deal. We take it very, very seriously, and we don't have much time to lollygag around."
It's important that potential donors are thoroughly informed about the process when they're recruited, Vera Cruz said. "It's very disappointing when donors give us the runaround. ... This (new) system concentrates on those who are interested and can be found."
The Hawaii registry has also created an "ambassador program," training past bone marrow donors to talk to people at bone marrow drives, Vera Cruz said. The Hawaii delegates will present the program to a bone marrow donor conference April 15-16 in New Orleans.
