The Chinese Marrow Donor Program (CMDP) signed an agreement on
Monday with its Japanese counterpart to cooperate in hematopoietic
stem cell transplant.
Under the agreement, the two marrow banks will seek cell donors
for leukemia patients by sharing marrow reserves information.
With 670,000 donors in China and 280,000 in Japan, the
cooperation would dramatically increase the match rate of
hematopoietic stem cells for patients with leukemia, said Hong
Junling, director of CMDP.
China had more than one million leukemia patients with around
40,000 new cases every year, said Hong.
"More than 2,000 leukemia patients in Japan are also waiting for
donors of hematopoietic stem cells," said Tohru Masaoka, adviser of
Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases in
Japan.
"We expect great cooperation between the two sides in saving
people's lives," Tohru Masaoka said.
Hong said the cooperation was possible because the people of the
two nations were "ethnically similar".
The two sides also agreed to recruit donors, conduct collection
of hematopoietic stem cells according to their respective standards
and procedures and maintain donor confidentiality.
CMDP, also known as the Data Bank of Chinese Hematopoietic Stem
Cell Donors, was established in 1992. It has signed agreements with
the U.S., South Korea and Singapore in marrow information sharing
and has donated 11 sets of stem cells to patients of those
nations.
(Xinhua News Agencey September 25, 2007)