More than 6,000 people search for a bone marrow match every day, and the likelihood of success is low.
"The chance of someone being a match is about 1 in 100,000," said Nawid Farhad, president of the UNM Afghan Student Association.
Farhad said that inspired the ASA to host a marrow donor drive, in collaboration with the National Marrow Donor Program, on Tuesday and Wednesday in the SUB.
Farhad said the event was a success because more than 300 people signed up and were tested to find out if they might make a match.
At the drive, potential donors were asked to fill out a sign-up sheet, undergo a brief medical examination and have their mouth swabbed to determine their tissue type. The National Marrow Donor Program retains the information until a person is 61. No blood tests were needed to determine whether someone could be a bone marrow match with a patient in need.
Anyone interested in donating can sign up online at Marrow.org. The National Marrow Donor Program will send a mouth-swab kit to the potential donor's home so a sample can be shipped back to the program.
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Michelle Sterling and her mother were at the SUB to help spread the word about registering with the National Marrow Donor Program. They're hoping to find a match for Michelle's sister, Melissa.
"We're looking for that match; we think there's one possibly," Sterling said.
Melissa Sterling, a graduate student at UNM, was diagnosed with leukemia last year. She was diagnosed with a second blood disease in August 2008.
Michelle Sterling said her sister is starting another chemotherapy session because she came out of remission.
Farhad said students should not hesitate to register in fear of the pain of donating bone marrow.
"A lot of people are under the assumption that the process is very painful," he said.
However, the procedure has changed in recent years and is now much easier for the donor, said Aubrie Vargas, an account executive with the National Marrow Donor Program and a five-year survivor of blood disease.
There are two methods of collecting marrow. Marrow donation is a surgical procedure for which the donor is placed under anesthesia. A hollow needle is used to draw marrow from the back of the pelvic bone, and soreness in the lower back is a common side effect, Vargas said.
"I've done the marrow donation procedure, and I was totally fine," she said. "I felt sore for a couple days, but nothing more than a normal bruise."
The more common method of marrow collection is called PBSC donation. The donor is injected with the drug Filgrastim for five days before the collection, Vargas said.
The donor's blood is then removed through a needle in one arm and passed through a machine that separates out the blood-forming cells. The remaining blood is returned to the donor's other arm, Vargas said.
Samantha Bear, a junior, registered to be a marrow donor Wednesday and encouraged her roommates to do the same.
"The process is really fast and simple," Bear said.
