Posted on: Friday, August 23, 2002

Registry seeks bone marrow donors

Advertiser Staff

Free bone marrow donor registration and testing by the St. Francis Medical Center Hawai'i Bone Marrow Donor Registry will take place at the Medical Outreach health fair from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. tomorrow at Moanalua High School.

Donors must be between 18 and 60 years old and in good health. A small sample of blood is collected from potential donors for tissue typing. The donor is then placed on the Hawai'i and national donor registries.

The St. Francis Medical Center donor registry aims to register as many potential donors as possible, especially those of Asian or Pacific Islander ancestry.

The bone marrow registry matches registered donors with patients who need bone marrow transplants because of terminal blood diseases.

More than 16,000 people nationwide are diagnosed with some type of blood disease each year.

For more information, call the St. Francis Medical Center Hawai'i Bone Marrow Donor Registry at 547-6154.