About blood stem cell donation
Donating your blood stem cells can save another person’s life. But what’s the donation process like?
View translated materials to access information about donation and matching with a patient in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese.
What are blood stem cells used for?
Blood stem cells are found in bone marrow and circulating (peripheral) bloodstream. They have the amazing ability to divide to make more blood stem cells, plus grow into red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. These blood cells are essential for our immune and circulatory systems to function well. When a patient with diseased cells, such as someone with a blood cancer or disorder, receives a blood stem cell transplant, the donor’s healthy blood stem cells travel to the patient’s bone marrow and start producing new cells. These new cells enter the patient’s bloodstream, replacing the diseased cells.
Read more about the diseases treated by a blood stem cell transplant.
What's donation like?
Throughout your donation journey, you’ll have a team of NMDPSM specialists working with you to answer any questions and make sure you’re set up for a successful donation. The entire donation process takes an average of 20–30 hours spread out over 4–6 weeks, excluding travel.
Peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) donation
If you’re asked to donate peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC), you’ll go to an NMDP managed or approved partner collection center or outpatient hospital facility, where donation is done via a procedure called apheresis.
- No surgery required; similar to donating plasma or platelets
- Usually back to your normal routine in 1–2 days
- Involves 5 days of shots to boost blood cell production
Bone marrow donation
While TV shows and movies have wildly exaggerated blood stem cell donation—especially bone marrow donation—as something scary, the reality is much less dramatic.
- No pain during donation
- Done while under general anesthesia
- Usually back to your normal routine in 2–7 days
- Doctors use a needle to withdraw marrow from the hip bone
Donor support
NMDP pays for all donation and travel costs, including:
- Medical appointments and the donation itself
- Flights, hotel stays and meals for both you and a companion of your choice
- Missed pay from work, pet care and childcare
NMDP supports donors by:
- Offering assistance for donors who need to miss work, class or practice for donation
- Talking to your family, school, coach or employer about the commitment if needed
- Advocating for donor leave in all 50 states through the Life Saving Leave Act
- Helping donors through the donation and travel process, regardless of ID status
- Providing resources to support donors through any potential barrier during travel because of Real ID; every effort will be put in place to avoid impact to donor availability
Real donors share their stories
A simple swab launched Natalie's donor journey
The importance of saying “yes” to donate blood stem cells
A simple swab launched Natalie's donor journey
The importance of saying “yes” to donate blood stem cells
How matching works
While a blood stem cell donation can cure or treat more than 75 diseases including leukemia and sickle cell, many patients don’t have a fully matched donor in their family. In those cases, doctors turn to the NMDP RegistrySM to look for an unrelated donor who can help. Matching blood stem cell donors to patients is much more complex than matching blood types. Doctors look at human leukocyte antigens (HLA), genes that code for specific proteins found on most cells in your body.
Myths and facts about donating PBSC and bone marrow
In our decades of managing the world’s most diverse donor registry, we’ve noticed there’s a lot of confusion and uncertainty about donating blood stem cells. That’s why we’ve addressed some common misinformation to help everyone get straight to the facts about donation and blood stem cells.
Donate cord blood
In addition to PBSC and bone marrow, there’s a third way to donate: umbilical cord blood. The blood left in the umbilical cord and placenta contains blood stem cells. Instead of disposing of the umbilical cord after childbirth, you can choose to donate your baby’s cord blood to potentially save someone’s life.