Bone MArrow Donation

[mikethompson747]

Hi Everyone

I was just wondering...

I am a frequent blood donator and i know the rules on blood donation and flying.
I am considering registering on the bone marrow donation register and was wondering how this affected the pilot.

i am only a PPL at the moment but want to go onto be a commercial when i finish the training.

any thoughts would help

Mike

[DX Wombat]

This is a thought as I don't know the regs regarding flying, but here goes. Blood and plasma donors can give blood as much as every 12 weeks for blood. I think it is 6 weeks for Plasma but am not sure. A bone marrow donor is unlikely to find him/herself called upon very frequently - if ever in some cases. This is because bone marrow is far more accurately tissue-typed than blood and is therefore more closely matched to the recipients requirements. So closely, in fact, that even a parent may not provide a close enough match. So you are not likely to be called on very frequently but if you are called you may be the recipient's last chance. Good luck.

[go with the flow]

Pretty much as above, but stronger. People who need a bone marrow transplant generally have something like leukaemia, and need a very precise match at 6 "HLA" sites: 2xA, 2xB and 2xD, where each can have something like 5-20 common possible variations, and many more uncommon ones. Note that the A and B are not the same A's and B's in your blood group.

To enable a reasonable chance of finding a matched unrelated donor, as ~60% of the time there is no related match or near-match, one needs 100,000 to 1,000,000 people on what is effectively a world wide registry. These individuals on teh registry are typed at the A and B sites. If there is a needy person, about 10-100 people with A and B matches will be called and further tissue typed at the more complex D locus. If they then match the potential donor would then be asked if he/she was willing to donate. The old way donation is actually a reasonable sort of operation and carries a small risk, although things are moving quickly to a more minor means of extracting the cells from the bloodstream. Obviously the donation is generally the only chance for the recipients long-term survival.
The australian red X quotes 1:1000 chance per year of being called for a second round typing.

I'd go for it. The chance of actually being required is low but it could just make a big difference to somebody.

[mikethompson747]

thanks

i know the chance of actually donating is very low indeed, but as you say giving someone the chance of survival for a bit of pain in the short term, i think is worth it.

I was just wondering how this affected a pilot, but i guess it is like blood donation, given a few days all would be well again

thanks again
Mike

[Tee]

The CAA has issued an Aeronautical Information Circular on this subject. The version I have is AIC 14/1998 (Pink 166) dated 27th January 1998. I don't know whether or not it's been superseded since then.

"Bone Marrow Donation: After bone marrow donation which involves a general anaesthetic, the minimum interval recommended before duty for both aircrew and controllers is forty eight hours"

[Tee]

I've just checked the list of AICs in force and it appears that AIC 14/1998 is still current. All current AICs can be found at www.ais.org.uk

[Background Noise]

I am not a medical expert and your best bet is to ask one, but I have had a bone marrow autograft (that is my own cells back after the high dose chemo therapy) so I have been a donor and a recipient.

While the AIC says a minimum of 48 hours afterwards there is a bit more to it. Bone marrow cells can be harvested either directly from the marrow, requiring a general anaesthetic, or from the blood stream as in my case. Although the harvest itself is relatively simple, the donor usually requires some pre-treatment to ensure that there are enough free stem cells in the blood stream to make the harvest viable. For me this treatment started 7 days before the harvest and was essentially a dose of chemotherapy. The effect of which is to stimulate the bone marrow into overproduction of stem cells (to compensate for the effect of the drug) thus ensuring that there are a lot more circulating stem cells to be available for harvesting. There were then some additional drugs also designed to stimulate stem cell production. I think it would be unlikely that you would be flying during this bit.

Please don't let me put you off. As has been said, you won't be donating very frequently if ever but being available on the register might make all the difference. They are incidentally always on the lookout for male donors.

There are a number of sites available with more info but here are a couple of links:
http://www.anthonynolan.com/ndonors/matching.html
http://www.cancerbacup.org.uk/info/bone/bone-3.htm

Good Luck.

[mikethompson747]

Thanks again to everyone who has responded, much appreciated.