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Participation in the National Marrow Donor Program Registry

[Protocol 90-091]

Full Title :

PARTICIPATION IN THE NATIONAL MARROW DONOR PROGRAM REGISTRY AND RESEARCH ON UNRELATED MARROW TRANSPLANTS

Purpose :

The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) has established a computer registry to identify and match bone marrow donors with patients who need a bone marrow transplant but whose relatives do not have the same HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) tissue type. HLAs are proteins on white blood cells that protect the body against invading organisms. The closer the match between the donor's and the patient's HLA types, the more successful the transplant is likely to be. In addition to maintaining the registry, the NMDP conducts research to evaluate the efficiency with which marrow donors and recipients are matched and to evaluate the success of bone marrow transplants from unrelated donors for the treatment of specific diseases.

Patients who wish to participate in a search of the NMDP Registry will need to provide Memorial Sloan-Kettering doctors with information such as HLA tissue type, medical diagnosis, date of birth, race, and sex. Without this information, it is not possible for the NMDP to search for an appropriate bone marrow donor. As part of a patient's participation in the registry, data will be collected at the beginning of the donor search process and periodically afterward. If a transplant is performed from an unrelated donor, the NMDP will collect research data for ten years following the transplant.

Information obtained from this follow-up research is unlikely to benefit the patient, but ultimately it is expected to improve the search process and transplant outcomes for future patients.

Eligibility :

All Memorial Sloan-Kettering patients eligible to receive a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor may participate in the study.

For more information, please contact Dr. Nancy A. Kernan at 212-639-7250, or via e-mail at kernann@mskcc.org. You may also call Carol Landrey, the Transplant Center Coordinator, at 212-639-7432.