08/07/2008

Associated Press

St. Luke's Mountain States Tumor Institute is closing its bone marrow donor registry next month because it can't meet new standards that require adding 1,000 potential minority donors a year, officials say.

The new standards were recently set by the National Marrow Donor Program based in Minneapolis.

"If you don't reach the goals, you are put on probation and terminated, so it seemed like the best way that we could do is give the program up and give it to another donor center," said Mark Allen, coordinator of the program in Boise.

National program officials did not immediately return telephone calls from The Associated Press on Thursday.

Allen said the demographics of southwest Idaho make it impossible to recruit 1,000 minority donors. He said St. Luke's averages 1,000 donors annually, 10 percent of them minorities.

"I think it's sad that we have to give it up, but the national requirements are so strict we can't continue with the program," Allen said.

St. Luke's had been running the program for 17 years. St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise closed its marrow donation program in April, also after 17 years.

Ellen Klohe, program director for the Inland Northwest Blood Center in Spokane, Wash., said operations could be extended to southwest Idaho but no decision had been made.

"We've been approached by St. Luke's to begin managing their file and take over the region," Klohe said, "but the National Marrow Donor Program makes the final decision."

She said the Inland Northwest center, which covers northern Idaho, Montana and Eastern Washington, already loses money on its program despite reimbursements from the national program.

More potential minority donors are being sought because only about 65 percent of minorities who need a bone marrow transplant find a match in the registry, compared with 85 percent of whites.

"The whole reason for the recruitment goals is to try to meet the needs of patients who currently don't have the same access," Klohe said.