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What if?

What if you are of mixed ethnicity (Hapa) and should suddenly be diagnosed with a bone marrow disorder?  

Did you know that bone marrow donors are matched by ethnicity?  So if you are of multiple ethnicities the chances of your finding a bone marrow donor becomes much more daunting than say for an Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, German or Irish person. It is already a difficult task for Asians to find donor matches because of the total number of registered marrow donors in the registry only about 8.5% are of Asian descent. The numbers get smaller when you look for mixed Asian donors. As of August 2007, only 177,678 mixed race donors had been counted for, 3.8 % of the total number of donors registered at that time. Then when you think about the different kinds of mixed races there can possibly be... you can begin to see the urgency of our situation for Krissy.

Hapa people now make up one of the fastest growing minorities in the nation and without them registering as bone marrow donors Hapas are risking themselves, their children, or their Hapa friends of possibly dying because a match cannot be found for them. 

Krissy is a patient with the City of Hope and has been run through the National Bone Marrow Registry but has not found a match yet.  She is half Japanese and half Caucasion which makes it more difficult to locate a match.  We are frantically holding as many bone marrow drives as possible to sign up new donors who might possibly be her match.  It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, but we (along with our many, many friends and family across the nation) will not stop until a donor is found. 

 

If you are Hapa (Half Asian/Half White), please help Krissy and other Hapa patients by taking a few minutes of your time to register as a bone marrow donor.   

 

Together we can make it "hapa'n"!!!

Asian Registry Facts 

There is a need for more Asian registers. We need to reach out to our communities and educate minorities who are unaware of their power to help save lives

The current NMDP registry has more than 7 million registered donors.

BUT…

 

-At present, approximately only 25% of those listed in the donor registry of the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP) are racial minorities, with mixed race people representing a mere 2% of the total. Thus the odds of a patient of any minority heritage, or combination of heritages, being able to find a BMT donor when needed are extremely small. 

-Most bone marrow transplant patients will find their match in someone who has a similar ethnic background as them.

-There's a 35-45 percent chance of finding a donor in the current registry if you're an ethnic minority. Well if you're Caucasian, you have about an 80 to 85 percent chance of finding a donor

-Less than 7% of the 6 million donors in the national registry are of Asian and Pacific Islander descent.There is also a need for mixed ethnicity registers.

-Only 25 – 30% of patients are able to find a related (family) donor. The rest of the patients must then rely on finding a donor that is unrelated to them; most likely to occur with someone of a similar genetic or racial background.

-MDS and Asian Women: The SEER Cancer Statistics Review for 2001 to 2005 shows that only 349 cases of women who described themselves as Asian or Pacific Islander were diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndromes, which is 2.3 percent of all cases reported within those five years. The statistics are even slimmer for a female under 40 - only 0.1 percent of all cases, as reported by SEER 

 

A lot of people talk about making a difference—Taking this small step means you are.