Analysis of 127 Stem Cell Donations of the Regional Bone Marrow Donor Bank Europdonor Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Abstract

In December 2000, the Bone Marrow Donor Bank Europdonor Nijmegen in the Netherlands celebrated its tenth anniversary. We describe the organisation and activities in the first 10 years of this regional bone marrow donor bank. A concise inquiry was sent to all transplant centres who had received a graft from our donors. Response rate was 88% and data were available from 127 recipients. Three donors donated twice to different patients. Median age of the 124 donors (42 females and 82 males) was 37 years and 30 years for the 127 recipients (48 females and 79 males). Time interval between first request of a blood sample and collection of bone marrow varied from 13 to 695 days (median, 113 days). All but two donors received general anaesthesia for 25-120 min (median; 60 min). Hospital stay has been reduced to 24 h. Most donors experienced pain from the collection sites for 3-5 days. However, 9 donors (7%) suffered from pain for 2-3 weeks. All but two donors (98%) were willing to donate a second time for the same patient and 119 (96%) donors wished to remain in the register. The number of nucleated cells (NC) in the collected marrow varied from 0.2 to 8.3 × 10 8 /kg body weight of the recipient (median, 3.5 × 10 8 /kg ) with 6.4-470.0 × 10 4 CFU-GM/kg body weight of the recipient (median, 18.0 × 10 4 /kg body weight). The 3-year projected probability of survival of the 127 recipients transplanted with marrow from donors provided by Bone Marrow Donor Bank Europdonor Nijmegen was 27 ± 9% (± 95% CI).