This referral hospital is now a center of excellence in its field, equipped with state-of-the-art technology and favorable conditions to guarantee isolation. They perform an average of 50 bone marrow transplants every year.

What is a bone marrow transplant? In a bone marrow transplant, bone marrow obtained from a donor is intravenously infused to replace a patient’s diseased cells. Bone marrow transplants are used to treat patients suffering from congenital or acquired bone marrow diseases, such as acute or chronic leukemias, bone marrow aplasia, immunodeficiencies, etc. Ideally for these patients, a compatible donor should be found among their immediate family members, but this only occurs in 30% of cases. In the remaining 70%, anonymous donors play a crucial role.

Any healthy person aged between 18 and 40 years can be a bone marrow donor. To be included in the Spanish Register of Bone Marrow Donors (REDMO), all that is needed is to collect a small blood sample at the Transfusion Center for HLA typing (the main histocompatibility system).

The result of this analysis determines whether two people are compatible. Only if a donor might be compatible with a patient would additional tests be performed with a view to proceeding with the donation.