The Minister of Health, Mónica García, presides over the institutional event organised to mark World Bone Marrow Donor Day, which pays tribute to donors and recalls the importance of this type of donation.
The Minister of Health, Monica Garcia, announced that the Bone Marrow Donor Registry (REDMO), which is managed by the José Carreras Foundation, has reached half a million registered donors, which means that ‘in just over ten years, we have increased the number of registered donors fivefold’.
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Spain exceeds half a million donors in the Bone Marrow Donor Registry
The announcement took place during the institutional event organised to mark World Bone Marrow Donor Day, to pay tribute to bone marrow donors and inform the public about this type of donation. At the event, the minister was accompanied by the director general of the National Transplant Organisation (ONT), Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, and the director of the José Carreras Foundation’s REDMO, Sergi Querol.
The minister wanted to recognise ‘bone marrow donors, the people who donate bone marrow to their relatives, and those who donate to an unknown patient who they will never have the opportunity to meet’. García also recognised the work of the José Carreras International Foundation and the different actors involved in the National Bone Marrow Plan (PNMO). The minister also highlighted the role played by Spain in the World Marrow Donor Association and stressed the importance of continuing to improve self-sufficiency and lowering the age of donors registered in the REDMO.
Mónica García also highlighted ‘the achievements of the PNMO presented today and the proper functioning of the REDMO, although it is important to continue to improve our response to patients’ needs’. In this sense, she said that ‘the ONT and the José Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation, together with the autonomous communities and the rest of the PNMO actors, are already working on the design of a strategy with new objectives, such as increasing the number of registered donors, but taking into account the diversity of our current population’.
The PNMO allowed 637 patients in Spain to be transplanted from a non-family donor in 2023, and more than 6,000 patients have benefited from it since 2012. On the other hand, during the event, the need to incorporate younger donors into the REDMO, especially males, was emphasised, as scientific evidence shows a greater probability of success of bone marrow transplants when the donor is young. According to the REDMO report, 51% of registered donors are under 40 years of age and the average age of donors incorporated in 2023 was 27 years.
The REDMO and the National Bone Marrow Plan
The REDMO was created by the José Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation in 1991 to identify compatible donors for patients in need of a bone marrow transplant who do not have a suitable donor among their family members. It is the only official registry in Spain responsible for managing the data on bone marrow donors, which it receives directly from the autonomous communities.
The National Bone Marrow Plan, coordinated by the ONT and developed in collaboration with the autonomous communities, scientific societies, patient associations and REDMO, was launched in 2012 and has been implemented in successive phases over the last 12 years with funding from the autonomous communities and the Ministry of Health.
The PNMO has focused on increasing the number of donors registered in the REDMO, improving the effectiveness of the registry (the probability that the registered donor becomes an effective donor) and increasing the level of self-sufficiency. Today it can be said that the PNMO has achieved its objectives, with the number of donors registered in the REDMO having increased fivefold in the 12 years of the plan, surpassing half a million donors by September 2024.
Bone marrow donation in figures
Worldwide, there are more than 42 million bone marrow donors registered in the 106 registries that form part of the World Marrow Donor Association, of which REDMO is a member with more than 500,000 current donors. When a medical team requests a search for a bone marrow donor, REDMO initiates the search among all the registries of the World Marrow Donor Association.
In terms of the volume of registered donors, REDMO ranks sixth in Europe and 13th in the world. In effectiveness, REDMO ranks fifth in Europe, with one effective donation per 1,250 registered donors.
The probability of identifying a volunteer donor for a patient is currently 88% (82% in 2012). In recent years, the option of haploidentical-related donor transplantation has been developed, which allows the treatment of patients without a compatible donor. While 70 haploidentical transplants were performed in Spain in 2012, this number was 428 in 2023.
The median time to identify a compatible donor through REDMO is 28 days.
In 2023, REDMO coordinated bone marrow donation for 637 Spanish patients and 285 patients from other countries. Since its inception in 1991, REDMO has managed the collection, transport and infusion of bone marrow necessary for the performance of 13,576 transplants for patients all over the world.
In 2023, 637 transplants were performed in Spain from unrelated donors, the highest number in our history. Of these, 28% of transplants were performed with bone marrow from a donor registered in REDMO itself.
Donor collection requests to REDMO increased by 29% in 2023 compared to 2022, to 642. Of these requests, 396 were successful, 24% more than the previous year.