by Bea Peterson
Bill Johnston, a past recipient of the Karen McGovern Award was at the McGovern Volleyball Tournament Saturday promoting the National Marrow Donor Registry. This past spring he organized two donor drives in Hoosick Falls urging people to participate in the Registry.
Johnston has non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He was diagnosed with the disease five years ago. Each year more than 63,000 Americans learn they have non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Bill has been in remission since November 26, 2008, when he underwent a stem cell transplant. “I feel pretty good,” said Bill.
“I have periodic problems. The biggest problem is graph versus host rejection.” That rejection causes rashes, inflammation, fevers and, sometimes, more serious problems. Bill suffers some of these problems. However, without the transplant he would not be alive today. That is why he has become the local coordinator for the National Marrow Donor Program, which handles bone marrow, cord blood and stem cell transplants. “I want people to be aware that there are these options out there.” And he wants people to join the list of potential donors so that other lives may be saved. “Being on the donor list is strictly confidential,” he pointed out.
Why A Registry
Many people afflicted with cancer do not have a family member that can donate compatible bone marrow or stem cells. Only 30 percent of patients in need of marrow or blood cell transplant find a matched donor in their family. That is why the registry was formed. It is estimated that a marrow or blood cell transplant could benefit more than 10,000 children and adults with life threatening diseases each year. Since the Program began operating 13 years ago it has facilitated more than 33,000 transplants.In 2008 there were 4,300 marrow and cord blood transplants. And in 2008, 36 percent of the transplants, more than 1,500, were for patients aged 50 and older.
Bill held the donor registration during the Tournament afternoon break. The registration process was easy. There was a form to fill out, which lists the donor by number, not by name. The donors, aged 18 to 60, simply took four cotton swabs, two to swipe inside upper and lower right and left side of the mouth. The swabs were packaged to be sent to a lab for analysis and to be cataloged.
Should a person be selected as a donor, he or she would have to go to either Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, or the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA, to undergo a three to five hour blood transfusion where stem cells would be vacuumed from the donor’s blood. These stem cells are replaced in the body in seven to ten days. After the stem cells are harvested, they are frozen and made ready for transport anywhere in the world. The trick is they must be transplanted into the recipient within 24 hours! These stem cells help the recipient generate his or her own healthy red blood cells.
Johnston said stem cell transplants are 80 percent successful, compared to a bone marrow transplant which has a 20 percent success rate.