New bone marrow donor walk-in service

By Ms. Suzanne Ovel (Army Medicine)March 23, 2015

New bone marrow donor walk-in service
Capt. Jackie Hammelman gets her mouth swabbed at Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma, Wash., in Fall 2014 in order to register to become a potential bone marrow donor. Madigan recently collaborated with the Armed Services Blood Bank Center- Pacific ... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

Potentially saving a life just got that much easier now that Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., has a walk-in center to register bone marrow donors.

The Armed Services Blood Bank Center -- Pacific Northwest (located in the Madigan Army Medical Center Annex) recently paired up with Sgt. Stephanie Smals, a Madigan licensed practical nurse, to allow Department of Defense ID cardholders to sign up for the bone marrow registry in the same center where they can donate blood.

After conducting a one-time bone marrow registry drive at Madigan last fall, "I wanted there to be an opportunity for potential donors to be able to walk in," said Smals.

Soon after, a blood bank representative contacted Smals with the same idea. The center went on to train its staff to also register bone marrow donors, a simple process that consists of a few minutes of paperwork plus swabbing one's mouth.

The bone marrow registration is run through the C.W. Bill Young Department of Defense Marrow Donor Program, which feeds into the National Marrow Donor Program. The military has a separate donor program because it is uniquely qualified to track military donors, many of whom move often. While only DoD ID cardholders can sign up for the bone marrow registry through the DoD program, potential donor recipients can be anyone who needs a bone marrow transplant.

Because the health screening requirements are different for bone marrow donor registration than they are for donating blood, many people who may be ineligible to donate blood immediately may still be able to sign up for the bone marrow registry. If someone is later found to be a potential bone marrow match, a more intensive health screening is done at that time.

The rates of deferrals for donating blood can be high here given the number of Soldiers who've served north of the demilitarized zone in Korea, which is the case for many Soldiers at JBLM, said Maj. Gerald Kellar, the chief of the Armed Services Blood Bank Center -- Pacific Northwest. Being able to sign up to be a potential bone marrow donor gives them another option to give back, and can keep their spirit of giving alive while they wait out their deferment.

"If we can give those Soldiers an alternative to register with the bone marrow program, more than likely once their deferral is up, we get a better chance of getting them back," Kellar said.

By offering the walk-in center and by incorporating bone marrow donor registration drives with mobile blood drives, Kellar and Smals hope to vastly increase the numbers of people signing up to be potential donors.

"We want to get as many people as we can because it's so difficult to find a compatible match for people," said Smals.

Unlike matching blood types, finding a match for bone marrow can be very complex, and it can become even more so if a close match isn't found within one's family. According to the DoD Marrow Donor Program, more than 70 percent of patients can't find a bone marrow match within their families.

"It's almost like a Rubik's Cube," said Kellar. "Your Rubik's Cube has to look like someone else's Rubik's Cube before the two of you can be matched up for donation."

Given the diversity of the military, they hope that minority donors are also well represented at the walk-in center.

"The best potential match is within your own ethnic group, and currently the way that the registry is now, there's a very, very small minority percentage on the registry," said Smals. The bone marrow registry has a proportionally small percentage of ethnic minorities registered, said Smals, especially African Americans and Latinos.

However, JBLM donors could help increase these numbers, said Kellar, since, "We're a good cross-section of society and we're a giving people."

Anyone from 18 to 60 years old may be eligible to become a bone marrow donor.

The walk-in bone marrow registration hours are 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Armed Services Blood Bank Center -- Pacific Northwest, located in Bldg. 9904 on East Johnson Street in the Madigan Annex's Ramp 2. For more information, call 968-1904.