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Small cells, big effect

Four donors in three years — this is the result of a type-matching campaign


Four donors in three years — this is the result of a type-matching campaign at ebm-papst in Mulfingen

In autumn 2007, three trainees found out that the son of a colleague was ill with leukaemia. They spon­ta­neously organ­ised a type-matching campaign for the Asso­ci­a­tion of German Bone Marrow Donors (DKMS). 370 ebm-papst employees regis­tered. Since then, the campaign has already iden­ti­fied four suit­able bone marrow donors, who have helped sufferers with their dona­tions. Thus, within three years the quota applying to all of Germany was achieved at ebm-papst in Mulfingen alone: Roughly one per cent of all those tested actu­ally become donors. Three employees have already donated stem cells, the fourth is waiting to start.

For the two latest donors, Arne Haag and Martin Münz, the stem cell dona­tion was a real chal­lenge — but also a very good expe­ri­ence. Just the deci­sion itself as to whether to become a donor or not was initially very hard for Arne Haag. For the extrac­tion of stem cells may also involve certain health risks for the donor. “Until you realise that you really are about to be a donor, you don’t give it too much thought. Only then did I ask myself what it really means for me”, is how Haag describes his thoughts. “After all, the medical inter­ven­tion is not totally without risk.”

Never­the­less, he decided to become a donor. For extrac­tion, Haag chose the so-called periph­eral stem cell collec­tion method. Here, a medi­cine flushes the stem cells out of the bone marrow and concen­trates them in the blood, from which they are filtered by a special system. The inter­ven­tion is on an outpa­tient basis, the donor can work on the following day. However, the medi­cine taken is not without risk, it was orig­i­nally devel­oped for leukaemia patients. “You are taking a medi­cine against an illness that you your­self don’t have. This makes you feel a little uneasy. Also with regard to the side-effects, such as chills and back pains.” However, the desire to help others over­came all misgiv­ings. The deci­sion proved to be correct: In spring 2010, Haag success­fully donated for a two-year-old Polish child.

The second current donor, Martin Münz, never had any doubts: “The thought that I might save a life gave me no alter­na­tive.” But also his dona­tion involved certain chal­lenges. he had no choice regarding the extrac­tion of his stem cells: For him, only direct extrac­tion from the pelvic crest, where the concen­tra­tion of stem cells is very high, came into consid­er­a­tion. “This method is only used when the situ­a­tion is already very crit­ical with regard to the leukaemia patient. I didn’t dare ask any more details.”

The risk from the required general anaes­thetic did not unduly worry Münz, as every­thing had all gone smoothly for his two previous oper­a­tions under general anaes­thetic. However, just before the appoint­ment for the oper­a­tion, he found out that his dona­tion had to be delayed because the leukaemia patient was in a life-threat­ening condi­tion. “I had really been hoping to be able to help the ill person, and now I was really worried.”

In January, ebm-papst in Land­shut too is to start a major type-matching campaign for a sick colleague. But not only people in Land­shut are needed. Everyone can be a poten­tial life-saver by taking part in this or other campaigns and asking himself “What type are you?”
www.shg-leukaemie.de

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