alt Hacker NewsWanted to give a plug for joining your country's marrow donor registry. As mentioned in the article one of the last ditch treatment options is a marrow stem cell transplant from a donor. Finding a compatible donor can be difficult. On average the odds of finding a match in the general population is 1:10,000, and it can be much worse for some sub-populations. National registries have greatly increased the odds of finding a matching donor but there are people that die while looking for one.
Getting in the registry is easy in the US. You fill out a form on NMDP.org's website, they mail you a free kit, you swab your cheek and mail it back. Something like 1:800 people in the registry ever get contacted about being a donor, so its a pretty rare event. As far as being a donor, I believe around 90% of donations can be done by filtering the blood of the donor, the rest are done surgically.
I was a donor a few years ago after matching through the registry. It was a pretty rewarding experience. Like many people I've had relatives and friends impacted in various ways by cancer. Usually, you get a very powerless feeling as you wait for the process to play out, being a donor felt good because there was something that I could do. Happy to answer questions about the process.