Haplo sibling donor?

Elmambo

Hello everyone

I am currently in my local hospital as I'm not too well, and despite being in hospital there is no one here to answer my question!
My sis rang me last night to say she receiv.ed a letter from kings... It basically said ' we can confirm you are a Haplo match 50% for your sister'

That was it.... No phone call to clarify or to detail anything. We don't want to be happy unless we know what on earth that all means.
Can anyone elaborate? Thank you!

I have Hodgkin's lymphoma xx

Annie_anthonynolan

Hi Elmambo,

I’m sorry to hear you’re not too well. I hope you’re getting the support you need in hospital. While I dont know all the details of your situation, it seems that the letter you received may be confirming that your sister’s tissue type is a half-match to yours. As ‘haplo’ or haploidentical’ means a related family member who is at least half-matched to you.

When looking for a donor for a transplant matching is done based on your human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue type. Your HLA is what makes you 'you' - it's your individual genetic characteristics. You inherit a set of HLA from each of your biological parents. It's similar to your blood group, but much more diverse and complicated. Your HLA is made up of genes and within these we look at five key sites, or loci. Each one of these sites has two alleles (types of genes) making 10 in total. So in the case of a haploidentical transplant, this means that your sister may be a 5 out of 10 match for you.

Have any of your doctors or nurses discussed haploidentical transplants with you? They are becoming more common and they can be a good option for some people. And doctors doing research into this type of transplant have found that they can be a good alternative to other types of transplants.

Can you get in touch with your transplant co-ordinator in Kings to discuss the letter and what it means?

Hope that helps for now
Anneliese in the Patient team

Elmambo

Hello Annie
Thank you every so much for your reply. All very complicated! I haven't heard about a matched donor since they tested my sister so I'm starting to worry there isn't one!
I'm really superstitious and I kind of don't like to ring and invite the information..... I want to hear from them...does that make sense!? Mad hey. Xx

Joy21

That makes perfect sense. My sister was tested as a match and while I was waiting for the results it meant there was still a chance. Unfortunately she wasn't a match but I was so lucky to have an unrelated donor from Germany.
Please let me know how you get on.
Joy xx