Be The Match - The Blood Institute

About Us

Be the Match at The Blood Institute is affiliated with the National Be the Match program and works to help patients with blood cancer find their cure. We are based out of The Blood Institute (Oklahoma Blood Institute, Arkansas Blood Institute, Texas Blood Institute and Coffee Memorial Blood Center) in Oklahoma City.

Every 3 minutes someone in the United States is diagnosed with a blood cancer. For these patients a stem cell or marrow transplant can save their life. In order to get that transplant, donors that have specific cell markers that are the same as the patients’ are called upon to donate. These donors are chosen from the registry of donors that are willing to help these patients. Unfortunately there are patients out there that don’t have anyone on the registry that is a match for them and for others, there may be a match but that donor is not willing to proceed. For those patients that don’t have a match, our goal is to get more willing donors on the registry so that all patients with a blood cancer have the opportunity for a cure.

You could be a cure for that patient in need by joining the registry. Click the Sign up link on this page or go to join.bethematch.org/obi to join the registry today. Once you complete the online registration, a swab kit is mailed to your house and you swab the insides of your cheek and mail it back. It doesn’t take longer than 30 seconds to swab. We encourage you to swab at your mailbox and send it back right away. After that, you are a member of the registry and may be called in a few months, a few years, thirty years or never at all to donate to that patient in need.

If you are called to donate for a patient, there are two ways of donation. The first way and most common way is PBSC which is similar to an Apheresis procedure that you do when donating platelets or plasma at your local blood bank. They give you medicine for 5 days prior to your collection to stimulate stem cells into your circulating blood. On day 5, you receive your final injection and go through the collection process. During the collection process, they put a needle in each arm and your blood goes through a machine that separates out the stem cells and gives back everything else. The collection time varies but usually takes about 4 hours. The other procedure is a marrow collection which is less common and only requested about 20% of the time. For a marrow collection, they put you under anesthesia and use a specialized needle to draw the marrow from your hip area. Afterwards, there is some soreness but is easily handled with medication.

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