Given the number of questions raised on this thread, we've been in touch with the communications team at Anthony Nolan and we're delighted that they have agreed to join us this week and answer your questions.
Anthony Nolan is a charity that helps save the life of people with blood cancer by using their register to match them with volunteers willing to donate their blood stem cells. There are currently 430,000 people on the Anthony Nolan register, but they are only able to find a match for around half the people who are in need of a lifesaving transplant. In order to double the number of lives they help save, they want to grow their register to one million potential donors. They are particularly keen to recruit young men aged 18-30, as they are the most likely to be chosen as donors.
Anthony Nolan also runs a cord blood donation programme at four hospitals around the UK. A cord blood unit is an alternative to finding an adult donor, and has many advantages, such as being immediately available for transplant, which has better outcome for patients. It also helps to address the lack of adult donors from ethnic minority backgrounds, who are traditionally underrepresented on the register. Under the scheme, mothers can donate their umbilical cord and placenta (usually thrown away as clinical waste), which are tissue typed and stored until needed. Donating does not interfere with the baby's birth once the baby has been safely delivered, a dedicated cord collector will make the collection, leaving the midwife free to focus on mother and child. For more info, please visit www.anthonynolan.org/cordblood. It is estimated that if they can collect 50,000 cord blood units (between Anthony Nolan and the NHS), they will be able to meet 80% of transplant requests.
Send in your questions about stem cell (or bone marrow) transplants, the work of Anthony Nolan and their cord blood donation programme and we'll be sending over a selection of your questions to a panel at Anthony Nolan: Ellen Marshall (Communications Officer), Guy Parkes (Head of special Projects) and Amanda Blum, (Donor Support Supervisor). As we're keen to get the answers back and live on the site asap, we're not setting a close date for the Q&A but will post on this thread once we have enough questions to send over and will keep you posted on when to expect the answers back.
To sign up to the register, you simply need to visit www.anthonynolan.org/spit, fill in a short application form and provide a small saliva sample. As it costs £100 to recruit each new donor to the register, the charity needs vital funds as well. More info can be found at www.anthonynolan.org