Matt is a Match

How is a bone marrow match determined?

Doctors look for a donor who matches their patient's tissue type, specifically their human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue type.

HLAs are proteins — or markers — found on most cells in your body. Your immune system uses these markers to recognize which cells belong in your body and which do not. The closer the match between the patient's HLA markers and yours, the better for the patient.

Sometimes multiple people are a match for a patient. In Matt’s case, he was called for a different patient about a year ago but then someone else was tested further and found to be a better match for that patient, having more matching markers present.

Matt was definitely disappointed last year when it didn’t work out, but to his surprise, he received a call again a couple months ago and he was thrilled to have another chance to do this!

Some people go their entire adult lives on this list waiting for the call. It’s rare to be called twice. However, please remember to keep all your contact info updated with Be the Match if you are on the registry list.

They can’t call you if they don’t know how to reach you. They also can’t spend a ton of time trying to track you down, so use this link to update your info:

https://bethematch.org/update-your-contact-information/

Not signed up yet for the bone marrow registry? No worries— keep following us. We think you’ll be interested soon enough.

Matt is a Match's cover photo

Matt is a Match