Don’t Wait Another Day – Join the National Marrow Donor Program through LifeStream and Be the Lifesaving Difference!
You can be the one person who will save someone’s life. All you have to do is join the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) registry and give hope to patients everywhere.
LifeStream Aligns with NMDP
LifeStream is the only blood center in San Bernardino and Riverside counties partnering with NMDP. Registering is as simple as a swab of your cheek. And when you make a blood donation at the same time, LifeStream will pay the normal $52 registration fee. LifeStream’s Medical Directors are on-call 24 hours a day to approve any matched donor as healthy and eligible to donate bone marrow or peripheral stem cells.
Since becoming an NMDP center, LifeStream has added over 25,000 donors to the registry – more than 1,000 donors every year. NMDP requests more than 100 additional work-ups on donors from LifeStream each year. These potential donors are right here in the Inland Empire and the Coachella Valley. Of those 100 work-ups, five to 15 LifeStream marrow donors are identified as a match for a patient whose disease can only be cured by their lifesaving donation.
About the National Marrow Donor Program
Every year, more than 10,000 Americans get life-threatening diseases that can only be cured with a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor. These patients do not have a family member who is a suitable donor, and a donation from a volunteer marrow donor is their only hope fur survival.
On any given day, more than 6,000 men, women and children desperately search the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) registry for a matching bone marrow donor or cord blood unit. These patients have leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases that can be treated by a bone marrow or cord blood transplant.
Even with a registry of millions, there are many patients waiting and hoping, unable to find a match. Donors with diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds are especially needed.
Bone marrow transplant is a life-saving treatment for people with leukemia, lymphoma and many other diseases. First, patients undergo chemotherapy and sometimes radiation to destroy their diseased marrow. Then a donor's healthy blood-forming cells are given directly into the patient's bloodstream, where they can begin to function and multiply.
In order for a patient's body to accept these healthy cells, the donor's tissue type needs to match the patient's type as closely as possible. Patients who do not have a suitably matched donor in their family may search the NMDP Registry for an unrelated bone marrow donor or cord blood unit.
Adult donors may be asked to donate in one of two ways:
- Bone marrow donation is a surgical procedure done under general or regional anesthesia so the donor experiences no pain during the collection process.
- Peripheral blood cell (PBSC) donation involves removing a donor's blood through a sterile needle in one arm. The blood is passed through a machine that separates out the cells used in transplants. The remaining blood is returned through the other arm.
Donors of these ethnic origins are especially needed, and the $52 registration fee is waived, even without a blood donation:
- Black or African American
- American Indian or Alaska Native
- Asian
- Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
- Hispanic or Latino
- Mixed heritage
How Can You Save Someone’s Life?
Click here to schedule your lifesaving blood donation with LifeStream, and to make an appointment to register with the National Marrow Donor Program.
Click here to read about Desert Sun Reporter Maggie Downs’ marrow donation.