The French Registry of unrelated stem cells donors: functioning and results

Until the late 1970s, only allogeneic bone marrow (BM) transplantation from fully HLA matched sibling donors were performed. Thanks to the development of BM donor registries, an increasing number of patients have been transplanted with HLA pheno‐identical unrelated donor. The French Registry named France Greffe de Moelle (FGM) was established during 1987. FGM is made of 113,680 donors, part of the 8 million donors registered worldwide. Bone marrow donation procedure is explained to blood donors and more generally to the public through the EfG (Etablissement francais des Greffes), patients‘ associations or grafting physicians. FGM receives national and international requests from grafting physicians for national and international donor or cord blood unit searches. FGM is acting as an interface between donors, transplant centres and international registries. FGM provides all necessary information to the grafting physician responsible to select the final donor. FGM has initiated since 1989 an electronic data link between European registries and actively participates in the development of the worldwide exchange standard messages. FGM adheres to the standards defined by the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA). Thanks to this collaboration, 75% of French patients benefit from international donors. With the efficient collaboration of the French Society (SFGM‐TC), FGM has validated new procedures such as peripheral blood stem cells collection during a first or a second donation. FGM is an active participant to an European research program which could lead to an optimisation of all registries by the inclusion of new HLA phenotypes not yet represented inside European donor files.