VU Marrowthon enters race to find donors

By Kym Tyler
Diversity Institute Fellow

03.27.06

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Christina Williams and Kimberly Mulligan sat together in the Student Life Center Monday, filling out donor registration forms and reading the procedures.

"It makes you nervous, but you would feel real guilty if you didn't help," said Mulligan, 26, after reading the information about becoming a bone marrow donor.

They were participating in the two-day "Marrowthon," organized by Vanderbilt Students Meeting for the Awareness of Cancer.

Helene DiIorio, a member of V-SMAC, said in the previous years there has been at least one student who was a possible match for marrow donation.

Mona Dilbeck, technical director of Blood Assurance, a Chattanooga-based blood sampling company, said the chance of being a good match is one in about 25,000.

With the goal of attracting more college students, Blood Assurance waived the $75 donor registration fee for any students attending the Marrowthon.

V-SMAC also used the free food giveaways as bait. "Food is always a good motivation," Williams laughed.

College campuses are the ideal locations for marrow donor drives.

"A younger person is preferred," Dilbeck said. "Our favorite donor is a young male. If there isn't one, then a young female is next in line."

Healthy male donors are generally able to supply larger volumes of marrow and are less likely to suffer from anaemia. A younger person is able to stay on the registry list for many years and provide matches for needed bone marrow.

According to Dilbeck, when a person is a potential match they will receive enough information about the donation process and possible side effects of the donation. Then the donor would take a physical exam to determine if they are healthy enough to donate. Then the patient will receive the transplant and give them a second chance at life.

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