Bone marrow donation: a campaign to inform people about the challenges of donation and diversify the register of voluntary donors

Following the unprecedented mobilization of thousands of would-be donors at the start of the year, the Agence de la biomédecine is redirecting its strategy towards targeted educational work, to ensure that new and future volunteer donors have all the information they need about this unique donation. The aim is to mobilize reliable, well-informed volunteers who, if one day contacted by a medical team, will be ready to help a patient - the "Life Watchers".

Unlike other donations of human body parts, bone marrow donation is a long-term commitment: it is not an immediate donation. Registration as a bone marrow donor means that the volunteer has his or her immunological identity card (HLA typing) entered in a register, so that he or she can be called upon to donate to an unknown patient with whom he or she is compatible. This could happen at any time...or perhaps never. "It's above all a firm commitment that's required, as the actual donation doesn't necessarily take place. But if you are called upon one day, even years after you have registered, you have to keep your promise, because it could save a life", explains Emmanuelle Cortot-Boucher, Director General of the Agence de la biomédecine.

Age, along with gender, is one of the most important criteria in donor selection. Transplants from young people give patients the best chances, as they are richer in hematopoietic stem cells (blood cells produced by the bone marrow), which favors graft uptake. What's more, donors are contacted on average 8 years after joining the register: the earlier they join, the greater their chances of helping a patient.

Following the change, effective January 1, 2021, in the maximum age for registration, now set at 35, the goal of recruiting 20,000 new donors in 2021 has largely been achieved:

• 23,769 new voluntary donors have been registered on the French registry, 24% of them men and 76% women.
• At the end of December 2021, the total number of donors on the registry now stands at 337,832.

Transplant doctors have found that a transplant using bone marrow cells taken from a man increases the patient's chances of a successful transplant. This is due to immunological factors: antibodies, absent in men and naturally developed by women during each pregnancy, make it more difficult for the patient to tolerate the bone marrow graft. In France, 70% of bone marrow donors are men, whereas 64% are women: it is therefore important for the bone marrow donor registry to become more "masculine", as male profiles are most often sought after for donation.

A bone marrow transplant requires finding a donor who is compatible with the patient, i.e. someone whose immunological identity card is as identical as possible to that of the sick person. Each person has their own genetic profile, determined in part by their origins and family genetic history. It is therefore essential for the registry to reflect the diversity of populations' origins as they exist in France and around the world, in order to improve the chances of finding a donor for each patient. "Diversifying the profiles of volunteer donors is the way to significantly increase the chances of finding a compatible donor: it's an essential factor in the quality of the registry," says Emmanuelle Cortot Boucher.

Despite the scale of citizen mobilizations orchestrated by associations and families faced with the illness of a loved one, bone marrow donation is still too little known and often misunderstood. The Agence de la biomédecine's objective for 2022 is to target men aged 18 to 35 as a priority, in order to encourage them to find out more about bone marrow donation and register online. In this way, they will join the large community of donors, those "life watchers" who can be called upon at any moment to save a life.

The Agence de la biomédecine is launching a targeted communication campaign, structured in two stages, to raise awareness of this donation and encourage new people to sign up:

• From March 28 to August 2022: an educational campaign aimed at 18-35 year-olds, featuring a wealth of digital content, to remind them of the key issues involved in donation and encourage them to find out more. On the program: video capsules, podcasts, publications on social networks, collaboration with influencers...
• From September to November 2022: close of the campaign on World Bone Marrow Donor Day, with a re-broadcast of the film produced in 2021 as part of the #Les20000 campaign.

A wide range of educational content will be broadcast: A video giving a transplant recipient the opportunity to tell his or her personal story The podcast "Veilleur de vie" ("Lifewatch") produced in 2021 with the voice of Cyrus North, to deconstruct preconceived ideas about donation Posts on social networks to reassure and inform Content in collaboration with influencers to popularize and de-dramatize the subject

To join the registry, you need to meet three conditions:

• Be in perfect health
• Be between the ages of 18 and 35
• Complete a medical questionnaire and take a biological sample (saliva sample or blood sample upon final registration), which will determine the biological identity card of the future donor.

This biological identity card becomes part of the register of voluntary bone marrow donors, which is constantly consulted to determine any compatibility with patients, in a totally anonymous manner.

Press contacts : Agence MullenLowe Paris

dondemoelleosseuse@golinfrance.fr

Marine Dahais 07 60 54 00 25

Camille Guaine 07 60 54 00 39

Agence de la biomédecine Hélène Duguet helene.duguet@biomedecine.fr / 01 55 93 69 43