Phoenix Children’s Hospital and Mayo Clinic to Host MARROWTHON - National Bone Marrow Registry Drive, May 3rd - 5th at Three Locations

PHOENIX -- (April 6, 2011) –  The Ottosen Family Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) Program at Mayo Clinic and Phoenix Children’s Hospital will host the National Marrow Donor Program's Be The Match:  MARROWTHON Donor Recruitment Campaign from May 3 – 5 at three Valley locations. This is a chance for members of the community and employees to help give the gift of life by joining the Be The Match Registry.

According to the Be The Match Marrow Registry (under the National Marrow Donor Program), every year more than 10,000 men, women and children are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases such as leukemia and lymphoma and do not have a matching marrow donor in their family.  To live, they need to find an unrelated marrow donor whose tissue type matches their own. Patients are most likely to match donors of their same race and ethnicity. If more people joined the Marrow Registry, more patients would find a donor.

The drive will take place at three locations:

• May 3, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Phoenix Children’s Hospital, 1919 East Thomas Road, in the Main Lobby
• May 4, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mayo Clinic,13400 E. Shea Blvd., Scottsdale, in the Taylor Auditorium on the Concourse Level of the Clinic.
• May 5, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mayo Clinic Hospital, 5777 E. Mayo Blvd., Phoenix, in Conference Room 1-212, located just off the atrium of the Main Hospital Building.  (Ask at front desk for directions, if needed.)

People ages 18-60 and in generally good health are encouraged to attend the drive and fill out a short questionnaire.  Then a small swab of cheek cells is taken with a cotton swab to determine the tissue type to be matched against patients who need a donor. This information is then added to the Be The Match registry.  No extraction of blood or marrow takes place at the event – just the screening and the swabbing.  The test results are then added to the Registry.

If a patient is diagnosed with leukemia or lymphoma and does not have a matched sibling or family member, the Registry is consulted to see if there is a match.  If a match is identified, people on the Registry are contacted to ascertain their willingness to proceed with donation.

"We are excited to host this drive, which could help save the lives of adult and pediatric cancer patients waiting for a marrow transplant," says Jay Maningo-Salinas, RN, manager of the Apheresis Program at Mayo Clinic. "Every day, thousands of children and adults with leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases are looking for a donor for a marrow or cord blood transplant," she added. "For a chance to survive, these patients need healthy marrow or blood cells to help their bodies make new, healthy blood cells, either from a donor within their family, or an unrelated donor from the Be The Match Registry."

“Joining the registry is a small, but empowering, pledge of time that has the ability to save lives and turn a hopeless situation into a hopeful one,” says Erin Curtis, pediatric bone marrow transplant coordinator, Phoenix Children’s Hospital.  “Families of the patient really focus on the donor search, since it is often the end of a long and difficult time period and often represents the only real chance at a cure.”

Phoenix Children's Hospital and Mayo Clinic in Arizona introduced the Valley's first pediatric blood and marrow transplant program. This program fills a critical gap in the Valley. Previously, the only pediatric BMT program in the state was at University Medical Center in Tucson. This meant that families in the Valley, already struggling with the burden of having a child with cancer, had to face the additional stress and inconvenience of having a child hospitalized in a distant facility for several months.

FAQs about Joining the Registry           

For more information about the Marrow Donor Recruitment Campaign, call (480) 342-0564 at Mayo Clinic or (602) 546-0824 at Phoenix Children’s Hospital or visit www.phoenixchildrens.com.

About Phoenix Children’s Hospital

Phoenix Children’s Hospital is Arizona’s only licensed children’s hospital, providing world-class care in more than 40 pediatric specialties to children from throughout the state and region. Though Phoenix Children’s is one of the ten largest freestanding children’s hospitals in the country, it is in the midst of a major expansion to meet the needs of the Southwest’s rapid population growth. The signature element of the expansion is a new 11-story, 750,000-square-foot tower which will enable the hospital to grow from 345 licensed beds today to a total of 626 licensed beds once the project is complete. The hospital’s expansion also includes an aggressive physician recruitment effort and new satellite centers in high growth areas of the Valley. For more information, visit the hospital’s web site at www.phoenixchildrens.com.

About Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic is a non-profit worldwide leader in medical care, research, and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit www.mayoclinic.org/about/ and www.mayoclinic.org/news.

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Media Contacts:

Lynn Closway                               Allison Otu

Mayo Clinic                                   Phoenix Children's Hospital

(480) 301-4222                             602-546-0824

Closway.Lynn@mayo.edu               aotu@phoenixchildrens.com