HOW TO HELP

If you’d like to join the Be The Match Registry to help Julian or other patients like him, go online to Join.BeTheMatch.org/ SaveJulian. Considering becoming a donor?

Here are some facts from Be the Match:

■ About 70 percent of people who need a bone marrow transplant do not have a match within their family.

■ Between bone marrow and cord blood transplants, Be the Match has facilitated 86,000 transplants since 1987.

■ There are more than 19 million people in the registry in the United States.

■ The recommended age limit to donate is 18-44.

■ The likelihood of finding a match on the registry is 23 to 77 percent, depending on one’s ethnic background.

■ There are two types of donations. Most of the time a patient’s doctor requests a PBSC donation, a non-surgical, outpatient procedure similar to donating platelets or plasma. Some patients need marrow, which requires a surgical procedure. General or regional anesthesia is always used.

■ To join the registry, request a kit from BetheMatch.org and swab your cheeks to get a DNA sample.

■ Matching tissue types is far more complex than matching blood types, which is why the more diverse the registry, the better.

SOURCE: THE MIAMI HERALD