Paediatric oncology unit dedicated to the fight against blood cancer

With September being dedicated to Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Netcare Alberton Hospital has committed to presenting a two-day awareness drive on blood stem cell donation.

On September 22 and 23, the hospital committed to educating the public on becoming blood stem cell donors.
This enables lifesaving treatments for patients with blood cancer or blood disorders, by replacing their unhealthy cells with healthy blood-forming cells.

The drive was conducted through DKMS Africa, formerly known as The Sunflower Fund, which aims to improve the situation of patients suffering from blood cancer and other blood disorders. They do this by raising awareness about blood stem cell donation, transplantation and registering blood stem donors in the registry.

This, according to Dr Tanya Schickerling of Netcare Alberton Hospital’s paediatric oncology unit, is also because of other patients desperately needing transplants, yet not finding donor matches.

A blood stem cell transplant is a procedure to replace damaged or diseased bone marrow with healthy blood stem cells.

Desperate need

Over the last four years, Schickerling said she has come to notice that they are struggling to find bone marrow donors for children with leukaemia.

“We’ve had two little boys that were diagnosed with high-risk leukaemia, and we couldn’t find a bone marrow donor for either one of them anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, because we have different African tribes, the genetics are very diverse and when you do a donor match, you have to match the DNA of your patient,” she explained.

She said DNA has to be matched and that if there is not a 10-out-of-10 match, then there is a high complication of bone marrow rejection of the transplant.

“If it doesn’t look identical, your body is going to see it as being foreign and then starts attacking this foreign material and that can be fatal. The reason we are not finding matches on the registries is that there are few people on the registry. There’s a big misconception of what the registry entails,” Schickerling said.

Become a donor

She reiterated that people believe that if they are asked to donate bone marrow, they will go through a very painful procedure.

“And because of these misconceptions, they don’t want to do it. It’s so easy to be on the registry, they swab your cheeks and that’s how we detect the DNA, followed by some paperwork. If your DNA matches somebody requiring a transplant, they phone you to check your availability and willingness to donate,” explained Schickerling.

She stressed that people are not essentially donating bone marrow, but stem cells.

“Stem cells are the ‘boss cells’ that are in the bone marrow that then grow there in the different types of blood stems. The only thing that is then required is, you will get an injection to stimulate the release of stem cells from the bone marrow in the bloodstream,” she said.

A blood transfusion then follows this process. That stem cell then goes into the patient and gets infused and makes its way to the bone marrow, where it starts growing.

“And people don’t know this, hence they’re not on the registry and are scared and because of this, we’re not finding matches and our children are dying. We currently have another little girl that needs a transplant, she has high-risk leukaemia and we did a search in South Africa and worldwide yet we cannot find a match,” Schickerling said.

If you are between the age of 18 and 55 and in general good health, to register as a potential blood stem cell donor visit dkms-africa.org