One of the biggest challenges in finding a match for someone in need of a stem cell transplant is the lack of diversity in most stem cell registries. The need to match specific genetic markers means that it is most likely that a donor will be found within the same ethnic community as the recipient. Unfortunately, many ethnic groups are under-represented in registries. Indeed, according to Canadian Blood Services, Canada’s OneMatch registry consists of 83% caucasian potential donors, leaving only 17% of potential matches to come from the many varied ethnic communities in the country.

OneMatch, as well as registries in other countries, do make efforts to specifically recruit from a broader cross-section of ethnicities but, as far as I can tell, mostly in fairly traditional ways. There have been other interesting campaigns to recruit donors from specific communities.

This is a three part video of a presentation about an effort to use social media to recruit bone marrow donors from the South Asian community specifically for two individuals suffering from leukemia, but unable to find matches. In the course of the campaign, they were able to recruit an additional 24,000 people to the bone marrow registry, including 7,500 in the San Francisco Bay area, where the campaign was centred, and from that 7,500 85 new matches were found. As one of the presenters points out, when you scale that nationally (or internationally for that matter), it adds up pretty quickly. And since all the major international registries are connected through Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide the potential for matches is increased for patients the world over. Indeed, Canadian Blood Services reports that in 2006 77% of stem cells used by Canadian patients were imported from other countries.

Have a look at the presentation. The effort that was put into the campagin is impressive, and there are definitely a number of good ideas that could be applied to other campaigns.

Part one talks about the background of the case, a bit about leukemia and its treatment; part two basically outlines their campaign; part three talks about the outcomes, offers some lessons and talks about the impact of the campaign.

Part 1 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

Part 3 of 3:

I would love to hear about what you think about this type of campaign. It seems to me that a lot of these ideas could be useful in some kind of ongoing way, rather than focused just on a specific campaign at a specific point in time (although the campaign does seem to be continuing in some form at www.helpsameer.org).