Health Sciences NEWS, Page 2 Table of Contents for this issue. Health Sciences NEWS home page. The NMDP maintains a registry of tissue-typed volunteer marrow donors.
Marrow transplants are a treatment for leukemia and other fatal blood diseases.
Although more than 1.2 million volunteers are entered in the registry thousands more are without donors. Because tissue types are inherited, a patient's best chance for a match from someone other than a relative is with a donor from his or her own ethnic group. The NMPD is working to recruit more minority volunteer donors so that minority patients have a better chance of finding a tissue match. People who volunteer for the NMDP are asked to give a small sample of blood for testing and must agree to be listed on the NMDP Registry. A volunteer can become a donor only after being identified as a match for a patient, participating in an information and counseling session, and undergoing a thorough physical examination.