Find answers to common questions about blood, bone marrow, and stem cell donation, eligibility, and how you can make a difference.
Saving Lives with Pride operates across Canada and the United States throughout the year. We participate in Pride festivals, organize donor recruitment drives and collaborate with community partners.
There are many ways to get involved. You can volunteer at one of our donor recruitment drives or help organize an event in your community. No previous experience is required.
You can register as a volunteer here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScvvQbqC7F6R1XKMY-DR02932fyvH3kH3tT7bnvy-_9-jWlGA/viewform?usp=header
The leadership of Saving Lives with Pride comprise of LGBTQ physicians, medical students, allied healthcare members, and individuals passionate about stem cell advocacy.
Blood? Yes! LGBTQ+ people can donate blood. In Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, blood donor eligibility is assessed using individual, behaviour-based criteria rather than sexual orientation. People who have had anal sex with a new sexual partner or multiple sexual partners within the past three months may need to wait three months before donating. Other eligibility criteria also apply.
Stem cells? Yes! LGBTQ+ people are eligible to join the stem cell donor registry. Sexual orientation does not prevent someone from registering. If you are identified as a potential match for a patient, further medical and donor eligibility assessments are completed before donation.
Organs and tissues? Yes! LGBTQ+ people are eligible to register as organ and tissue donors. Sexual orientation does not prevent someone from becoming a potential donor. Actual eligibility is assessed individually based on medical and other relevant factors at the time donation is considered.
Blood? Currently, no. In Canada, people living with HIV are not eligible to donate blood, plasma, or platelets, including those receiving effective treatment with an undetectable viral load. U=U (Undetectable = Untransmittable) is established for sexual transmission of HIV although it does not apply to blood transfusion. HIV can potentially be transmitted through transfused blood even when a donor’s viral load is undetectable by routine clinical testing.
Stem cells? Currently, no for the volunteer stem cell registry. This is because stem cell transplantation transfers blood-forming and immune cells and requires stringent infectious-disease screening for transplant recipients.
Organs and tissues? Potentially, yes. In Canada, potential organ and tissue donors are assessed individually at the time donation is considered. Donors should be tested for HIV, and cells, tissues, or organs from a donor who tests positive for HIV would not ordinarily be released for transplantation. However, Health Canada’s regulations include exceptional distribution provisions that can permit transplantation in specific circumstances when authorized by the transplant physician and accepted through informed consent. Canadian Blood Services also states that a person living with HIV who is receiving treatment may, in some circumstances, be eligible to donate a kidney to a recipient who also has HIV, with eligibility determined case by case.
Over the past several years, Saving Lives with Pride has collected more than 3,200 stem cell donor registration swabs through Pride festivals and community-based donor recruitment initiatives across Canada and the United States.
No. A cheek swab is not a stem cell donation.
The swab collects cells from the inside of your cheek so that the registry can determine your HLA type and search for possible matches with patients who need a stem cell transplant.
You may remain on the registry for years without ever being contacted to donate. If you are identified as a potential match, the registry will contact you before anything further happens. You will be asked whether you are still willing and available to donate and will undergo additional testing and health assessment before any donation takes place.
Stem cell donors and patients are matched primarily using inherited genetic markers called human leukocyte antigens, or HLA. The frequencies of different HLA variants vary among ancestral populations. As a result, although ancestry does not determine whether two people will match, patients are generally more likely to find a closely HLA-matched unrelated donor among people who share a similar ancestral background.
This becomes particularly important because many non-European ancestral populations remain underrepresented in donor registries. Some populations also have greater HLA diversity, which can make finding a closely matched unrelated donor more difficult at any given registry size.
This is why building a registry that includes people from many different ancestral and mixed-ancestry backgrounds is an important part of improving equitable access to stem cell transplantation.
There are two principal ways to collect blood-forming stem cells from an adult donor, and neither involves the spinal cord.
The most common method is peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) donation. Canadian Blood Services currently reports that approximately 90% of its adult stem cell collections use this method. Before donation, the donor receives injections of a medication called granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), which increases the number of blood-forming stem cells circulating in the bloodstream. The stem cells are then collected through apheresis, in which blood passes through a machine that separates the stem cells and returns the remaining blood components to the donor.
The other method is bone marrow donation. Canadian Blood Services reports that this accounts for approximately 10% of collections. It is performed under general anesthesia, and marrow is collected with hollow needles from the back of the pelvic bones. The spinal cord is not involved.
The collection method is determined later in the matching and donation process based on the needs of the patient and clinical considerations.