Ms. Elise Collins

Bone marrow drives held on the Cape to help find donors for the 6-month-old already have identified one person who appears to be a match for somebody suffering from a deadly blood disease, said Elise Collins, donor center manager for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
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"This is one of the biggest drives we've ever done," Collins said.Typical drives attract between 30 to 300 people.

The tissue types of people whose cheeks were swabbed for a potential match will be stored until the potential donors are 60 years old.

"At any point, any of these donors could match a patient anywhere in the world," Collins said.
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The transplantation is an attempt to help patients build a healthy new immune system, but patients have to be strong enough to withstand the chemotherapy and radiation that go along with it, Collins said.

"We've definitely seen an upsurge lately in people doing this," said Elise Collins, donor center manager for the marrow program at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

On one day alone, March 3, three local families held bone marrow drives.Two were in the same town.

In Derry that day, a drive for a 32-year-old mother who has leukemia drew 1,016 people to Calvary Bible Church to join the registry.It was one of the largest of the drives run by Dana Farber in recent memory, Collins said.
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Collins said she's not sure why there has been a surge in potential donors joining the registry, but the trend cannot be denied.It's probably a variety of factors, she said, including an increased push for recruitment on the part of registries, a simpler cheek swab screening that recently replaced blood samples, and the sheer charisma of patients and their families.

"For a long time it was mostly 30 to 150 people (at a typical bone marrow drive), which is still wonderful," Collins said.
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That's what's so amazing about the international registry of potential donors, said Collins, of Dana-Farber.

"Without someone doing a drive here, someone in California won't have a donor.And without doing a drive there, someone in Australia won't have a donor," she said."It's really worldwide cooperation."
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The decision to do it, though, should not be taken lightly, said Elise Collins, donor center manager of the marrow program at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

At any point until you turn 61, your sample could be matched with an anonymous person anywhere in the world and you could be called upon to save his or her life.

The donation requires either minor surgery, in which bone marrow is withdrawn through a special hollow needle, or a process similar to donating blood.

Both methods involve some discomfort for the donor, Collins said, and may require time off from work.

The donation always is voluntary and the donor can say no at any point in the process, she said.But but if somebody knows they don't want to follow through with a donation it's better to stay off the registry than to join and be put in an uncomfortable situation once a match is made.

"There's nothing worse than calling someone when they come up with a match and have them say, 'Is that what I signed up for?'" Collins said.

Helping to give someone's parent, sibling or child a chance of a lifetime is one of life's rarest gifts," says Elise Collins, a recruiter with the Dana-Farber NMDP Donor Center.

Elisé Collins, donor center manager at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, reports that the drives usually draw between 100 to 300 people but by the end of the event at 5 p.m. an estimated 1,300 people had come forward. Ms. Collins reports that 745 swab kits were taken that day, the third-largest number in the seven years that she's been associated with the Institute.
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Lt. Guerreiro contacted Ms. Collins and learned that the sooner they had a drive the better for Turlough.
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Ms. Elisé Collins is the Donor Center Manager for the National Marrow Donor Program at Dana-Farber's Department of Medical Oncology. She relates the usual chronology of events leading up to a "pitched, patient-focused" bone-marrow drive:
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Ms. Collins says, "It was great that Chris Guerreiro from the Dennis Fire Department called because we don't want the patient's family to do donor recruitment. They have enough on their plate already. They need to focus on themselves."

Organizing a drive

Elisé Collins says that for this type of "pitched patient-focused drive" to succeed, promotion is critical.
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Collins says that the key activities for the local drive sponsor are securing a location, promoting the event, and recruiting volunteers "Drives are most often held in church halls and schools.
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We don't want the drive sponsor to incur a lot of expense," says Collins.
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Elisé Collins says, "The Incident Command System worked well.
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Says Collins. "In fact, that prediction has already come true in a most remarkable way. Turlough's uncle, Kevin, who had participated in Turlough's drive, received a call from DFCI on the day that Turlough died, telling him that he was a match. After going through a series of further tests, he donated bone marrow that saved a woman's life."

"We've definitely seen an upsurge lately in people doing this," said Elise Collins, donor center manager for the marrow program at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

"For a long time it was mostly 30 to 150 people (at a typical bone marrow drive), which is still wonderful," Collins said.
...
That's what's so amazing about the international registry of potential donors, said Collins, of Dana-Farber.

"Without someone doing a drive here, someone in California won't have a donor," she said.
...
The decision to do it, though, should not be taken lightly, said Elise Collins, donor center manager of the marrow program at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

At any point until you turn 61, your sample could be matched with an anonymous person anywhere in the world and you could be called upon to save his or her life.

The donation requires either minor surgery, in which bone marrow is withdrawn through a special hollow needle, or a process similar to donating blood.

Both methods involve some discomfort for the donor, Collins said, and may require time off from work.

The donation always is voluntary and the donor can say no at any point in the process, she said.But but if somebody knows they don't want to follow through with a donation it's better to stay off the registry than to join and be put in an uncomfortable situation once a match is made.

"There's nothing worse than calling someone when they come up with a match and have them say, 'Is that what I signed up for?'" Collins said.

Elise Collins, donor center manager at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, was on duty Saturday along with Stacey Rieu, donor coordinator at Dana-Farber.
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Collins called the drive very successful.She said although Ford knew he already had a donor, he wanted to raise awareness about MDS and help the registry.

"He really had the drive to do this," Collins said.