Liah Long
JRNM 151 student

All it takes is a mouth swab and a little bit of paper work to begin the process of helping those with blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma.

On Thursday, Sept. 11 from 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. there will be a bone marrow donor registry drive in the College Center building. These tests are to find potential bone marrow matches to help patients with a form of blood cancer.

“The likelihood of being a match is about 10 percent and getting chosen to donate is about 1 percent,” Tonya Davis, organizer of Be The Match, said. If you are found to be a match you’ll be contacted and asked to donate.

Once matched, the typical donation process take four to six weeks. During this time the donor goes through an informational session and has a physical examination, according to bethematch.org. Once the initial preparatory steps are taken, the actual donation can take place. The donation process involves doctors removing liquid bone marrow while the donor is under anesthesia. It is usual for the donors to be released from the hospital the day of the donation.

Davis is also asking LCCC student organizations for help. She’s “looking for a student group on campus who might be interested in holding a registry event to get more people to register”. The more matches who join the registry, the better chance Be The Match has at helping to save lives.

There are roughly 18,000 people every year in need of a bone marrow transplant, according to hrsa.gov. Out of those 18,000 patients 4,421 receive donated marrow while the remainder of patients have cells transplanted from their own marrow or that of a blood relative.

If you have any questions about the bone marrow registry, or are interested in holding a registry event on campus, please contact Tonya Davis by phone at 216-406-6236 or by email at tdavis2@nmdp.org.

Karl Schneider contributed to this article.