Swiss Bone Marrow Donor Registry

The Swiss Bone Marrow Donor Registry was established in 1988 as a project o f Swisstransplant. Up to January 1999, a total of 14,753 unrelated donors h ave been recruited by the Regional Blood Transfusion Centers of the Swiss R ed Cross Blood Transfusion Service. HLA-AB typing of the donors is performe d at laboratories of brood transfusion centers or universities; the Laborat oire national de reference pour l'histocompatibilite is responsible for qua lity control and DR oligotyping. The Swiss registry is integrated into the international network of and cooperates with registries in many other count ries. Since 1988, international donor searches were completed for 260 Swiss patients and were successful in 125 patients (48%). Additional 37 searches are still running. So far, 89 Swiss patients could be transplanted with bo ne marrow from unrelated donors. The Swiss registry was involved in 19,624 international donor searches, 820 of which were extended by confirmatory do nor typing. A compatible Swiss donor could be identified for 134 patients, and a transplantation was performed in 91 patients. Only 8 of the 89 transp lanted Swiss patients were transplanted with bone marrow of an unrelated Sw iss donor. For the remaining patients the donor was found in other countrie s. Likewise, more than 90% of the bone marrow donations collected in Switze rland were determined for patients in other countries. Thus, without intern ational cooperation, the demand for unrelated bone marrow transplants could not be met in our country.