Our Amazing #199 and #200 Cord Blood Transplants!

Reaching our 200^th transplant has been an exciting achievement in itself, but getting there has been especially amazing for more reasons than one. Would you believe, our 199th and 200th cord blood units were donated by the same family?! Not only were they from siblings born six years apart, both were collected at Queen’s Medical Center by Dr. Eesha Bhattacharyya. And just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get any better than that, it does…our #199 and #200 cord blood units were transplanted into the same recipient! We could not have asked for a more special way to reach our 200^th transplant milestone!

Hawai‘i has about 3,600 of the 225,000 umbilical cord blood units in the National Marrow Donor Program. Over 85% of all units we collect here in Hawai‘i come from donors of minority and mixed ethnicity. This is what makes our program unique and important for minority and multi-racial ethnicity patients worldwide who have difficulty finding a match. That said, it is no surprise that the ethnicity of the sibling donors, our #199 and #200 transplants would turn out to be Pacific Islander, Asian and White. Mahalo to all of our generous donors for helping to give the gift of life!