Naval Hospital Bremerton's Branch Health Clinic Bangor set up at the command on April 22 to provide information, insight and walk-up testing for the C.W. Bill Young Department of Defense (DOD) Bone Marrow Registry.

The BHC Bangor Bone Marrow Registration was the first walk-in site for military personnel established in 2013 for Kitsap County.

"I volunteered to help out because there are eight kinds of cancer in my family," said Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Shaun Aragon, a New Mexico native, who along with Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Jacob Wilson, staffed the registry for a number of hours in the middle of the week.

The entire registration process is easy to follow with minimal instruction. There is one page to fill out for contact information and another for health history. Then the actual testing is done with taking a sample from a person with four cheek swabs. That coded information (no names or social security numbers are used for identification purposes) will then be added on the National Marrow Donor Program national registry where it will remain until their 61st birthday.

Jesse Alva, of NHB's Outpatient Records department stopped by and asked about the registry program with questions on several issues.

"Does it hurt? And what if I change my mind at the last minute," asked Alva.

"It does hurt," replied Aragon, also adding that the main accomplishment they were trying to do at that time beside let people know about the program was to get people to sign up, and realize there are no strings attached.

"The biggest thing for us today is to get like matches. And we can only do that if someone signs up which is easy and can be done in less than five minutes. No one is obligated. If someone is eventually contacted, they can always say no," Aragon added.

The C.W. Bill Young Marrow Donor Registry is a Department of Defense entity but is part of the larger National Marrow Donor Program's 'Be The Match' world-wide registry used to match potential bone marrow donors to patients. More information can be found on the DoD website: http://www.dodmarrow.org/Pages/about/about_program.htm

The entire registration process is user-friendly and free. To be eligible, a prospective donor must be active duty and/or family member, National Guard, Reservist, U.S. Coast Guard or DoD employee, in reasonably good health and between ages 18 and 60.

When asked why she was signing up, Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Dawn Dillow of NHB'S Multi-Service Ward exclaimed, "Why not? I always donate during our quarterly blood drives, and this is another way of saving a life."

According to the C.W. Bill Young DoD Bone Marrow Program, an estimated 30,000 children and adults in the United States, more than 500 of them in the Department of Defense, are diagnosed each year with leukemia, aplastic anemia (a rare auto-immune deficiency disease) or other fatal blood diseases. For many of these people, a bone marrow transplant is their only hope. Because tissue types are inherited and some tissue types are unique to certain racial or ethnic groups, a patient's best chance is within his or her ethnic and racial group.

Since 75 percent of the patients in need of a marrow transplant cannot find a match within their own family, a strong national database is essential for identifying potential donors. The larger and more diverse the National Marrow Donor Registry becomes, the greater the chance of finding life saving matches.

The Department of Defense established its own marrow donor center, the C. W. Bill Young Marrow Donor Center, in Kensington, Maryland, to meet the special needs of the military. While donors through the DoD program join the National Marrow Donor Registry, a separate donor management system offers a secure system to facilitate the process.

Much as NHB's involvement with Madigan Army Medical Center and the Armed Services Blood Program quarterly Blood Drive that sends most of the donated blood product - red blood cells, plasma, platelets and cryoprecipitate - immediately down range for use in Afghanistan, so does the DoD program strive for mission-critical timing in the event of need. Such as providing immediate donor searches in the event of a mass casualty incident involving nuclear or chemical agents. Military casualties may be rescued using HLA (human leukocyte antigen) matched platelets or, in cases of more severe exposure, marrow donated by a volunteer. This mission is one for which the time frame for identifying donors and receiving platelets or marrow can be a matter of days rather than months.

After a potential donor completes the initial registration and the results are added to the National Marrow Donor Registry, the process becomes an indefinite holding pattern, unless a potential match is found. If a preliminary match has been identified, the donor will then be contacted for additional blood testing. If it's then determined that there is a match, the donor will then receive further insight on continuing the donation process. At this time, it will be up to the donor to make an informed decision if he/she still wants to go through with the entire process.

The process can be rigorous. If a person does chose to go ahead with the entire process, there are two specific donation methods implemented.

The former coordinator of the program, Lt. Cmdr. Katie May explained that when she went through the Peripheral Blood Stem Cells (PBSC) procedure, she received daily injections to increase the number of blood stem cells in the bloodstream for four days before the collection and a fifth injection on the day of collection. Her blood was then removed through a sterile needle in one arm and passed through a machine that separated out the blood stem cells with the remaining blood returned through the other arm. The other procedure is the bone marrow method, where the donor has less than five percent of their marrow collected from the back of their pelvic bone using a special needle and syringe. It's a simple surgical procedure performed while they are under general or local anesthesia. Donors usually stay overnight in the hospital.

Those who missed the registry opportunity today can visit BHC Bangor for more guidance and information.

For more news from Naval Hospital Bremerton, visit www.navy.mil/.