Questions and answers

1. Is bone marrow harvesting dangerous?

Absolutely not. The whole procedure is completely safe for the donor.

2. A portion of blood is collected prior to operation. Why??

To give this amount of blood back to the donor while harvesting bone marrow (to avoid volume disparity).

3. How long my bone will my bone marrow regenerate?

The regeneration will last for about 2-3 weeks, but the donor does  not even know about. The blood production in Your organism will not be affected, because only about 1% of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) is harvested from the donor.

4. Is this procedure painful?

No at all. When the bone marrow is harvested directly from large bones (usually pelvis), the procedure will take place under general anesthesia. When HSC are filtered from peripheral blood the procedure is similar to blood donation, so it’s painless.

5. Are there any side effects for the donor?

They are only consequences of general anesthesia In very rare cases nausea or headache may occur.

6. How long will I stay in the donors registry?

Potential donors stay in the registry untill 50. In cases of very rare HLA antigens, their data is kept in the registry for a longer period of time, since such person can be one and only doron for a specific patient.

7. Can I meet the person, which has my bone marrow?

It is possible only when patient, after full recovery, asks to meet his donor. The donor can not obtain the patients personal data.

8. How many donor are registered worlwide?

In the registries around the world there are more than 13 milions of potential donors. But, especially in some countries, the number of donors is too low to serve the country population.