Bone marrow donation: what if young people moved from intention to action?

The need to recruit young people as a priority is a medical necessity. Bone marrow transplants from young donors are richer in stem cells, which means that patients can receive transplants more quickly. Various medical publications in recent years have shown that transplant results are significantly better when the donor is under 35.

For these reasons, and even if, once registered, a donor can remain on the voluntary donor register until the age of 60, more than 70% of the donors harvested each year are under 35, both in France and abroad. In addition, while only 34% of donors on the national registry are men, over 70% of marrow donors are male.

Faced with this ambivalence between awareness of the importance of donation and commitment to becoming a donor, Dr. Catherine Faucher, hematologist and Director of Hematopoietic Stem Cell (bone marrow cell) Procurement and Transplantation at the Agence de la biomédecine, has the following message:

"I would say to adults aged 18 to 35: don't expect others to become donors for you, because one bone marrow donor cannot replace another!

Your profile is UNIQUE, and each new young donor can make the difference and be THE person who helps a patient recover. Indeed, to receive a bone marrow donation and hope to recover, a patient must first find a compatible donor. But this compatibility is very rare. Each of us has our own "biological identity card".

So, to increase the probability of finding a compatible donor for each patient, every year we look for 20,000 new volunteers to join the bone marrow donor register. Not only can this donation help save a patient's life, it's also completely safe, and the bone marrow harvested is reconstituted within a few days in the donor's body."

46% of 18-35 year-olds say that bone marrow donation and health in general are subjects in which they have little interest and/or which make them feel uncomfortable.

This feeling of discomfort and lack of information contribute to the persistence of misconceptions about donation.

• **NO, bone marrow is not harvested from the spinal column!**29% of young people surveyed* believe that bone marrow is harvested from the back or spinal column. The spinal cord belongs to the nervous system and is located in the spinal column. We don't touch it! Bone marrow is present in all our bones, especially in the pelvis.
• **NO, bone marrow donation does not always require hospitalization****This misconception persists among 2/3 of the young people questioned.¹

**In 80% of cases, bone marrow cells are taken directly from the blood. In the remaining cases, the sample is taken from the pelvis, under a short anaesthetic. It's neither risky for your health, nor painful!

Understanding bone marrow donation - www.dondemoelleosseuse.fr

What is bone marrow?

Bone marrow is a substance found in all our bones, responsible for the formation of our blood cells: red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Bone marrow is therefore essential to life, and its dysfunction is the cause of serious blood diseases such as leukemia.

Who needs a bone marrow transplant?

People who suffer from bone marrow dysfunction, which leads to serious blood diseases such as leukemia. Bone marrow transplants are sometimes the last hope of recovery for these patients. Bone marrow donation is completely anonymous: you can't decide to whom you give your cells.

How do you donate bone marrow?

Bone marrow donation is not immediate. You first have to sign up on a donor register, then wait to be called several months or years later. Some donors will never be called because they have never been identified as compatible with a patient.

In 80% of cases, donation is by blood sampling: equivalent to a platelet donation, it lasts between 3 and 4 hours, and the donor can perfectly well keep busy by watching a series, listening to music or reading a book. The other way of collecting blood is directly from the pelvic bones, under anaesthetic. In both cases, there is no risk of paralysis.

What are the conditions for becoming a donor?

• Be in perfect health

• Be between 18 and 35 years of age

• Go to www.dondemoelleosseuse.fr to complete a quick and easy medical questionnaire and take a biological sample (saliva sample or blood sample upon final registration), which will determine the future donor's "biological identity card".

It only takes a few minutes to register, and then you're waiting to be called upon to save a life!

1. Study carried out online by the Viavoice institute for the Agence de la Biomédecine, from March 22 to 27, 2024 among: A sample of 600 people from mainland France, representative of the population aged 18 to 35 living in mainland France.