Abstract
With more than 11 million registered stem cell donors worldwide and limited resources for health systems, it seems questionable if investments in ongoing donor recruitment are useful. Since there is evidence that transplant outcomes are better with younger donors, the age distribution of registered donors is highly relevant in this context. One might argue that the usefulness of a donor file decreases if there is no new donor recruitment not only as a result of loss of donors who reach the age limit for donation but also since those donors who remain in the file get older. We established a multivariate model to quantify this effect and to estimate the number (designated R) of donors who must be recruited annually to keep donor file usefulness constant. The model is applied to real data from DKMS German Bone Marrow Donor Center. R exceeds the number of donors who reach the age limit by factors up to 7.3. The model can serve as an easy-to-use tool for strategic donor registry planning. Our results suggest that analyses regarding optimal size of donor registries should also include the age distribution of registered donors.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Morishima Y, Sasazuki T, Inoko H, Juji T, Akaza T, Yamamoto K et al. The clinical significance of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) allele compatibility in patients receiving a marrow transplant from serologically HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-DR matched unrelated donors. Blood 2002; 99: 4200–4206.
Flomenberg N, Baxter-Lowe LA, Confer D, Fernandez-Vina M, Filipovich A, Horowitz M et al. Impact of HLA class I and class II high-resolution matching on outcomes of unrelated donor bone marrow transplantation: HLA-C mismatching is associated with a strong adverse effect on transplantation outcome. Blood 2004; 104: 1923–1930.
Petersdorf EW, Anasetti C, Martin PJ, Gooley T, Radich J, Malkki M et al. Limits of HLA mismatching in unrelated hematopoietic cell transplantation. Blood 2004; 104: 2976–2980.
Lee SJ, Klein J, Haagenson M, Baxter-Lowe LA, Confer DL, Eapen M et al. High resolution donor-recipient HLA matching contributes to the success of unrelated donor marrow transplantation. Blood, 4 September 2007 (doi:10.1182/blood-2007-06-097386).
Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide. www.bmdw.org.
Beatty PG, Dahlberg S, Mickelson EM, Nisperos B, Opelz G, Martin PJ et al. Probability of finding HLA-matched unrelated marrow donors. Transplantation 1988; 45: 714–718.
Sonnenberg FA, Eckman MH, Pauker SG . Bone marrow donor registries: the relation between registry size and probability of finding complete and partial matches. Blood 1989; 74: 2569–2578.
Beatty PG, Mori M, Milford E . Impact of racial genetic polymorphism on the probability of finding an HLA-matched donor. Transplantation 1995; 60: 778–783.
Müller CR, Ehninger G, Goldmann SF . Gene and haplotype frequencies for the loci HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-DR based on over 13 000 German blood donors. Hum Immunol 2003; 64: 137–151.
Kollman C, Abella E, Baitty RL, Beatty PG, Chakraborty R, Christiansen CL et al. Assessment of optimal size and composition of the US National Registry of hematopoietic stem cell donors. Transplantation 2004; 78: 89–95.
Kollman C, Howe CWS, Anasetti C, Antin JH, Davies SM, Filipovich AH et al. Donor characteristics as risk factors in recipients after transplantation of bone marrow from unrelated donors: the effect of donor age. Blood 2001; 98: 2043–2051.
Carreras E, Jiménez M, Gómez-García V, de la Cámara R, Martín C, Martínez F et al. Donor age and degree of HLA matching have a major impact on the outcome of unrelated donor haematopoietic cell transplantation for chronic myeloid leukaemia. Bone Marrow Transplant 2006; 37: 33–40.
Mehta J, Gordon LI, Tallman MS, Winter JN, Evens AM, Frankfurt O et al. Does younger donor age affect the outcome of reduced-intensity allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for hematologic malignancies beneficially? Bone Marrow Transplant 2006; 38: 95–100.
Confer DL, Miller JP . Optimal donor selection: beyond HLA. Biol Blood Marrow Transplant 2007; 13: 83–86.
Confer DL . The national marrow donor program: meeting the needs of the medically underserved. Cancer 2001; 91: 274–278.
Schmidt AH, Stahr A, Baier D, Ehninger G, Rutt C . Efficiency of HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1 high-resolution typings of newly recruited potential stem cell donors. Blood 2006; 108: 448b (abstract).
Schmidt AH, Stahr A, Baier D, Schumacher S, Ehninger G, Rutt C . Selective recruitment of stem cell donors with rare human leukocyte antigen phenotypes. Bone Marrow Transplant 2007; 40: 823–830.
Statistisches Bundesamt. www.destatis.de.
Heemskerk MBA, van Walraven SM, Cornelissen JJ, Barge RMY, Bredius RGM, Egeler RM et al. How to improve the search for an unrelated haematopoietic stem cell donor. Faster is better than more! Bone Marrow Transplant 2005; 35: 645–652.
Setterholm M, Morishima Y, Pepperall J, Schmidt A . Strategies for typing new volunteer donors. Tissue Antigens 2007; 69 (Suppl 1): 6–7.
Jahresbericht 2006 Deutsches Register für Stammzelltransplantationen. www.drst.de.
2004 Biennial Report of the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry. www.hrsa.gov.
Gratwohl A, Baldomero H, Frauendorfer K, Urbano-Ispizua A, Niederwieser D . Results of the EBMT activity survey 2005 on haematopoietic stem cell transplantation: focus on increasing use of unrelated donors. Bone Marrow Transplant 2007; 39: 71–87.
Lee SJ, Klein J, Haagenson M, Baxter-Lowe LA, Confer D, Eapen M et al. Single or multiple HLA-A, B, C or DRB1 mismatches limit success of unrelated donor bone marrow transplantation. Blood 2006; 108: 55a (abstract).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schmidt, A., Biesinger, L., Baier, D. et al. Aging of registered stem cell donors: implications for donor recruitment. Bone Marrow Transplant 41, 605–612 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1705950
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1705950
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Ethnicity, length of time on the register and sex predict donor availability at the confirmatory typing stage
Bone Marrow Transplantation (2014)
-
Age-dependent HLA profiles of the Israeli population: impact on hematopoietic cell donor recruitment and availability
Immunogenetics (2014)
-
Qualifications and training of adult stem cell donor recruiters: recommendations by the World Marrow Donor Association
Bone Marrow Transplantation (2013)
-
Criteria for initiation and evaluation of minority donor programs and application to the example of donors of Turkish descent in Germany
Bone Marrow Transplantation (2009)