Thread: Family Testing?
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Old Mon Mar 1, 2010, 08:21 AM
squirrellypoo squirrellypoo is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: London, UK
Posts: 458
I only have a small experience with the US healthcare system, but my brother still lives in the US, and when we knew I'd urgently need a transplant, he had a blood sample taken ASAP and his US Navy insurance paid for it with no hassles. The results were then forwarded to my doctors here in London and compared against mine. He ended up being only a 5/10 match for me, but the process was only a few weeks. Since time was very important with my bone marrow failure, they did a worldwide search while waiting for my brother's results in case he wasn't a match so they didn't lose any time. I was very lucky to have 5 broad matches, who then went back in for further refined testing, and 3 of those were 9/10 matches.

(There was a BBC news story last night about a little girl needing a donor, and they gave the statistics that if you're black or mixed race, there's a 1 in 100,000 chance of finding a donor on the registry, as opposed to a 1 in 5 chance if you're white! )
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36/F - 1984 SAA treated with ATG [complete remission until] Oct 08 - burst blood vessels in eyes and low platelets; Jan 09 - AA & hypo-MDS; July 09 - BMT (RIC MUD PSCT) July 10 - 10k for Anthony Nolan (1yr post BMT! 53:48) Sep 10 - Wedding! I've run 5 marathons now!! (PB 3:30!)
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