Awareness - Blood Cancers in Minorities

Shortage of Minority Bone Marrow Donors Proves Obstacle

By José Alvarado

Minority patients suffering from leukemia and other blood-related diseases face limited prospects of finding a donor with matching bone marrow tissue type because of the relatively low number of minorities such as Blacks, Hispanics/Latinos, Native Americans, and Asians/Pacific Islanders represented in the National Marrow Donor Program registry.

"Minorities, in general, are very poorly represented in the NMDP," said Jaime Oblitas, manager of the NIH Marrow Donor Program, which participates in the NMDP. "For a patient to have a successful transplant, donor and patient must be compatible genetically, which sometimes only happens when they both come from the same ethnic or racial group."

The NIH Record http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/10_07_97/main.htm October 7, 1997

Vol. XLIX, No. 20

Death Rate Higher in Minorities With Acute Leukemia, Study Finds

Sep. 19, 2011 — Blacks and Hispanics have fewer cases of acute leukemia compared to whites but they die at a substantially higher rate, according to study results presented at the Fourth AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held in Washington, D.C. from Sept. 18-21, 2011.

  American Association for Cancer Research (2011, September 19).

Science Daily http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110919163952.htm