It is a cry from the heart that launched Katinka Rambert-Cadré to save her child suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia, cancer of the blood and bone marrow.

"As soon as we learned that Joseph would need a transplant, at the beginning of January, our friends launched an appeal," she told AFP.

"We don't know yet if he will be eligible, but if so, we will need a donor right away."

In two weeks, the counters were packed.

The requests for registration on the donor file represented "several months or even several years" of collections, underlines Emmanuelle Cortot-Boucher, director of the biomedicine agency, which manages the register in particular.

"Extremely surprised and touched" by this mobilization, Joseph's mother thinks that many people "did not know that it was so easy to give".

Bone marrow donation is indeed still too often, wrongly, confused with the spinal cord.

In 80% of cases, the donation of bone marrow cells is done by blood collection.

The remaining 20% ​​is taken directly from the bones in the pelvis during a short operation under anesthesia.

"Huge progress"

President of the Laurette Fugain association created 20 years ago, Stéphanie Fugain, whose daughter died of leukemia, explains that at the time "there was a total ignorance of this gift".

Since then, things have progressed, but "not enough".

Science has also made enormous progress.

“The first transplants were performed in the mid-1950s,” says Didier Blaise, director of the transplant program at the Paoli-Calmettes institute in Marseille.

“You have to find a compatible donor, but we are talking about several thousand antigens, which are extremely complex combinations,” he explains.

In 80% of cases, the donation of bone marrow cells is done by blood sampling GERARD JULIEN AFP / Archives

Doctors generally turn first to the various members of the patient's siblings (brothers and sisters) because there is then "a one in four chance of obtaining compatibility".

At the end of the 1980s, a national register of voluntary donors was created to help patients who did not have a compatible brother or sister.

To date, it lists more than 311,000 donors and is also linked to all international registers.

We need more male donors

“Today, it is especially necessary to grow the file qualitatively”, advocates Ms. Cortot-Boucher, the director of the biomedicine agency.

To be a donor, you must be between 18 and 35 years old at the time of registration.

The agency would now like to attract more men (75% of registration requests now come from women) because with a male donor, the graft is better tolerated immunologically.

Each patient has their own genetic profile, determined in part by their geographical origins and family genetic history.

“It is therefore essential to find this diversity of profiles among the donors registered on the register”, also assures the agency.

Africans, Asians or North Africans are not represented enough today.

Each person who registers must keep in mind that they may never be called and in any case they will never know who their donation will benefit, finally warns Ms. Cortot-Boucher.

A reminder that should in no way prevent giving, insist the associations and relatives of patients, stressing that the more donors there are, the more chance there is of finding the transplant necessary for a patient as quickly as possible.

“Several children die each year for lack of a donor, even if a donation will not serve Joseph, it could save the life of another child”, underlines Katinka Rambert-Cadré.

© 2022 AFP