If they're under 18, they can be tested with their parent's approval.  One of my sons was under 18 and we had him tested but he didn't match me.  I know of one case where a teen needed a transplant and his adolescent sister was a match.

Kelly

Will your insurance pay for it? Make sure, unless you can afford to bear the cost yourselves. My insurance company (BC/BS) only paid for the testing of the person that was ultimately used as my donor. So anyone that was tested that wasn't a match, or might've been a match but not used, wasn't covered.

I paid the cost of my sister's testing. Not a match. No one ever suggested that my daughter be tested, so she wasn't. I had understood that the liklihood of her matching was remote. But who knows.

Pam

I'm only pitching in to this discussion because of my strong feelings about this whole matching procedure ... especially in the States where all you guys seem to pay for it.

I joined the registry here in Oz in 1990 ... many of you know that ultimately in 2003 I matched my son. I was tested as a matter of course again at this time, along with his father and siblings. The registry for me was not tested at that time (2003) because I was told I would not match ... and of course a parent match is unlikely. We were tested to get a better look at the lineage that Hamish would have, coincidentally I then matched.

What irks me a bit about all of this is that I am a ready and willing donor for anyone around the globe who needs my particular HLA. If I were to match it would be given ... the testing was free. There must be so many Americans who would gladly do the same but it is prohibitive to join because you pay ... yet you have access to ready matches globally who are on registers freely. This seems mean spirited to me of the American bureaucracy ... whose system would take from global registers but require its own citizens to pay for blood draws to be tested for others. That just don't seem right to me, am I missing something here? I would like to know the numbers of donors on registers in the USA compared to the rest of the globe ... I'm not being mean spirited about it, it just seems that the system over there is missing something fundamental about the goodwill associated with this. Yeah I know it costs to maintain a register etc etc, but all our blood banks here are free, donors like myself donate regularly and the system works. Why can't it work elsewhere...what a mess. And cord bloods are the same here ... a little trickier to organise but the same. You simply donate in the same way as you would a regular donation, providing the birth is a planned delivery and there is a cord collection service available (thats the trickiest bit).

So, in the case of a patient here with leuk, the hospital automatically organises the matching of direct family members (siblings and parents) ... and it takes place often even before the decision to have a transplant is made. That was the case for us. For young siblings (again our case) the results are only used for the patient and the children do not go on to the register.

Sandra

Sandra,

As you know, we don't have a national health support program.  Even the initial tests to get on the regitry cost money but it is usually subsidized by a grant to a small cost.  It's not mean-spirited so much as a misplaced belief that nonprofit organizations will generate enough money to take care of these things if the issues are imortant enough.

To be honest, for all the good it does and all the respect I have for it, the National Marrow Donation Program does a lousy job of promoting itself and its needs.  We need a Susan Komen's sister but there don't seem to be any around.

Just a FWIW.

Blessings

I got that you were calling the system mean, not us.  I think I was just saying it's not so much mean as it is indifferent.  Maybe someday we'll become as enlightended as the rest of the world's industrialized nations.

I'm figuring Ham's holding his own?

Blessings

Karen, it is my understanding that children cannot be a match for a parent. Or at least, a child's likelihood of being a match for a parent is no greater than the general population.

When my dad was diagnosed with AML, I was about to give birth to my younger son. Knowing very little about the SCT process, I frantically researched HLA-typing and cord blood donation to see whether I should save the cord blood. Turns out, it would have never been used for my dad. Not only is a grandchild too remote, but a child is too remote to be a donor for a parent. My understanding is that we inherit 1/2 of our HLA factors from each parent. That's why each sibling has a 25% chance of matching another sibling.  Something like that, anyway.

Gayle!  I didn't see you'd posted.  It's really good to see you.  Give my best to coach.

Blessings