The Governor of Eastern Province Has Joined The Stem Cell Donor Registry of KFSH&RC- Riyadh

General

16

August

KFSH&RC launched a stem cell donation campaign in the Eastern Summer Festival

The Governor of Eastern Province has joined the stem cell donor registry of KFSH&RC- Riyadh

His Royal Highness Prince Saud bin Naif bin Abdulaziz,, the Governor of Eastern Province has joined the Stem cell Donor Registry of KFSH&RC-  Riyadh. His Highness has launched the awareness campaign by undergoing a mouth swab to determine the tissue type and blood type, thus inaugurating the awareness campaign of the Stem Cell Donor Registry during The 37th Eastern Province Summer Festival.

The purpose of the campaign launched by the hospital is to reach out to the largest segment of the society with the view of increasing the number of registered donors in the list, which in turn increases the possibility of finding matching donors to patients suffering from serious diseases and is need for stem cell transplant.

A specialized team in stem cell donation is ready to receive visitors daily from 4 p.m to 11 p.m throughout the campaign which will last until Saturday 24 Dhu Al-Qada (27 August) in a makeshift tent set up for this purpose at the seafront in Dammam as part of the Festival activities.

Dr. Feras Alfraih, Consultant, Hematology/ Stem Cell Transplantation at KFSH&R-, Riyadh clarified that the stem cell donation awareness campaign is targeting Saudi citizens above 18 years. It will based on applying a mouth swab, the latest technique applicable worldwide to determine tissue typing and blood group rather than the previous technique of obtaining blood samples. He pointed out the importance of increasing the number of donors in the registry in order to save patients who suffer from serious diseases. Several studies showed that third of the Saudi patients have no matching donor among siblings despite the fact that each sibling has 25% possibility to match the patient in the tissue analysis.

He indicated that in case of finding a matching donor for one of the patients in the registry database. The matching donor will be contacted in order to come to the hospital for the purpose of donating an amount of the stem cell which is usually done through arm. It is safe process where they get 300 ml and the body will compensate this amount in four weeks. Dr. Alfraih also pointed out, that there are more than 28 million people worldwide registered as stem cell donors in the World Registry for Stem Cell Donation most of them Europeans and Americans. He added that this would make the probability of finding a matching donor for foreign patients quite high, while the Saudis benefit ratio is very weak, not exceeding 2.5% due to the different types of tissues as well as ethnic differences.

It is worth mentioning that KFSH&RC in Riyadh has performed more than 5000 stem cell transplants since 1984 for patients with high-risk diseases, such as leukemia, cancer of lymph glands and bone marrow failure with outstanding results comparing to peer international centers.