How Online Bone Marrow Drives Are Helping To Fight Blood Cancer
Every three minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with blood cancer. These people often rely on bone marrow donations to survive, but getting a match can be difficult. To make registering easier, the non-profit DKMS has launched virtual bone marrow drives. Carina Ortel, CEO of DKMS, explains how an online drive works.
When it comes to donations, not all marrow is made equal. Ortel says studies show that blood stem cells from young men have been found to be the most successful long term after transplants. Finding a match has a lot to do with ancestry. African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans are highly underrepresented on the American bone marrow donor registry.
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