Love Hope Strength (LHS) was established here in the UK and the USA in 2006 by the internationally acclaimed musician Mike Peters and his wife Jules after Mike was diagnosed with leukaemia. The Peters family were determined to help save lives and give hope to other families affected by cancer.
As well as supporting cancer care projects across the globe through its fundraising efforts, LHS has gone on to establish the ‘Get On The List’ programme to help people with a blood cancer or blood disorder who need a second chance of life. To date LHS, which is led by incredible volunteers and supported by partnerships with leading international organisations including the international blood cancer charity DKMS, has registered almost 250,000 people to international stem cell donor registries. Incredibly, approximately 4,500 of those who’ve registered have been identified as potentially life saving matches.
Why is it important to ‘Get On The List’ and join a blood stem cell donor registry?
Someone in the UK is diagnosed with blood cancer every 20 minutes. Not everyone that’s diagnosed needs a blood stem cell transplant in order to survive, but many do. Only around 30% of people with blood cancer find a matching donor within their family.
There are around 2,000 people in the UK searching for a blood stem cell donation every year and over 37,000 people waiting worldwide. Only 0.4% of the worldwide population are registered as a potential blood stem cell donor currently. The more people that register as a potential donor, the better changes for blood cancer patients of finding a match.
How do you ‘Get On The List’ and join a blood stem cell donor registry?
Most people aged between 18 and 55 can ‘get on the list’ with LHS to potentially save the life of someone with blood cancer. All it takes is a cheek swab and a few minutes of your time to register as a potential blood stem cell donor. The chances of being matched with someone are very small. Currently only one in every 511 people that LHS has swabbed have been called up to say they’re a match.
If you ‘get on the list’ and are found to be a blood stem cell match with someone, your stem cell donation would give that person a second chance of life. Giving a blood stem cell donation is a painless, non-invasive process that takes only a day in an outpatients department in hospital.
You can request a swab kit NOW and become a potential life saver. Please help give people with blood cancer the hope they so desperately need. Request your swab kit here: www.dkms.org.uk/lhs
Thank you!
