Female to Male Donation

[Catl]

My dad has high risk MDS with excess blast and started Vidaza about a month ago. We met with the transplant clinic last week and they believe he is a candidate for SCT which was great news. We also found out the next day that his 67 yrs old sister is a perfect match! Just wondering if any men on this forum had a female donor? The doctors during the appointment mentioned that they prefer male donors over women, especially those that had children as these women have extra antibodies that men don't have. Apparently there is a higher chance of chronic gvhs with female donors. I wonder if they will try to see if there are any male donor matches in the stem cell banks or if they still prefer female sibling over unrelated donor??

[bailie]

My information was similar when they were looking for a match for me. Age seemed to be significant as well as sex of the donor. They wouldn't consider my 70 year old sister. I ended up with a 20 year-old donor from Germany.

It will be interesting to hear what is decided. I'm sure it will be a tough call. I would think they would run dad's data through the donor bank to see if there is a better match/situation.

[rar]

I was a 76 year old male who received a SCT from my 68 YO sister. I have GVHD. I am still vertical 2.5 years after transplant. I have 11 potential matches. Doctors thought sister was best chance.

Ray

[bailie]

Ray, I have always thought your situation with sister being your donor was remarkable. It seems like they told me that it would be difficult to receive enough stem cells from an older person. Again, I salute you and your sister.

[Catl]

Thanks for your replies. We are seeing one of transplant doctors on Wednesday and we are likely to discuss the donor situation. It will definitely be interesting to see what they say. The one positive thing I have read about female to male donations is that there is a lower chance of relapse of the disease.

[rar]

The way it was explained to me is that there are pros and cons to donation from an young stud vs. an old sister. After all is said and done they balance out. A young brother is the best. My sister produced 1.5 times the number of cells needed for a transplant. There was a choice to freeze, or give me the excess. The doctor decided to give them to me. I wonder what the doctor would do if after getting chemo and TBI my sister did not produce enough cells?

[DanL]

Great question Ray. Not sure what they would do if that happened with any of our donors for any reason. It must not be a common occurrence. The cases where I have heard this come up is with auto transplants after the consolidation chemo, which kind of makes sense because they are obliterating the donor's own marrow, and it may not recover quickly enough.

[Tripleal]

I'm 64 and male my donor was a 47 year old female and everything has gone good I'm 19 months post Transplant I pray everything goes well for you . Alan

[Catl]

Glad to hear that others have had success with female to male donations. The doctor we saw today is not part of the transplant team but he told us that usually they favor siblings over unrelated donors even if sibling is female and older.

The funny thing is that we are still waiting for results from my Dad's younger brothers. Not sure why but they got tested about a month ago and still no results. His sister got tested after his brothers and her results are in.