they create healthy red blood cells,
white blood cells and platelets.
“Each time a person joins this register
it brings fresh hope to patients of a
match,” Guy Parkes, theh head of stem
cell donation and transplantation at
NHS Blood and Transplant, said.
“This register is used by hospitals
across the UK to find suitable matches
for patients and it has helped to save
and improve the lives of thousands of
people since its creation 33 years ago.
“It’s amazing that we now have over
two million people on the register, put-ting the chances of matching donors to
patients at a record high.”
The register is made up of donors re-
cruited by NHS Blood and Transplant,
the Welsh Blood Service and the chari-
ties Anthony Nolan and DKMS. The
organisations said the register particu-
larly needed more young men and
potential donors from black, Asian and
minority ethnic backgrounds.
The demographic most likely to be
asked to donate is men under 30, but
they make up only 19 per cent of the
stem cell register. Donors from minor-ity ethnic backgrounds make up 13 per
cent of the register. Patients from those
backgrounds have a 20 per cent chance
of finding the best possible stem cell
match from an unrelated donor, com-
pared with 69 per cent for those from
northern European backgrounds.
Henny Braund, chief executive of
Anthony Nolan, said: “The two million
milestone means increased chances for
many of finding an unrelated donor
match. But we’re still far from our goal
of finding a match for everyone who
needs one.”IN THE
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IN PAPER
The number of vape users in Britain has
dropped by 400,000 in 12 months, with
campaigners saying that an unfounded
belief that they are no less harmful than
smoking is stopping people using them
to quit cigarettes.
The figures came as an international
evidence review found that e-cigarettes
were 70 per cent more effective in
helping smokers to quit than nicotine
replacement therapy.
The charity Action on Smoking and
Health (Ash), pointed to YouGov poll-
ing, which showed that in March there
were 3.2 million e-cigarette users in
Britain, down from 3.6 million the year
before.
This year 17.4 per cent of smokers
used an e-cigarette, whereas
17.6 per cent reported doing so in 2014.Decline of vaping raises smoking fears
Ash said that “unfounded concerns
about the relative safety of e-cigarettes”
were a likely cause, with only 39 per
cent of smokers correctly believing that
vaping was less harmful than smoking.
Deborah Arnott, the charity’s chief
executive, said: “About a third of smok-
ers have never even tried an e-cigarette
and less than 20 per cent are currently
using one. If many more smokers could
be encouraged to give e-cigarettes a go,
the latest evidence indicates that many
more might successfully quit.”
She called on doctors and nurses to
promote vaping as a quitting tool.
“Health professionals... can give smok-
ers the confidence to try an e-cigarette
by letting them know that they can help
them manage cravings and that they
are a much safer alternative than con-
tinuing to smoke,” she said.
More than 643,000 smokers in Eng-land quit in the 12 months to August,
compared with 307,000 last year,
according to the UCL Smoking Toolkit
Study, a monthly household survey.
However, a separate analysis by Uni-
versity College London and Ash calcu-
lated that more than a million people
gave up smoking during the lockdown.
A Cochrane Review, considered a
gold-standard method of collating evi-
dence on a topic, published a report
yesterday that said e-cigarettes were
better than the standard treatment of
nicotine replacement therapy as a quit-
ting tool.
The review highlighted evidence that
if six people in 100 quit by using nico-
tine replacement therapy, ten people in
100 would quit by using e-cigarettes
containing nicotine.
Caitlin Notley, from the University of
East Anglia’s Norwich medical school,part of the review team, said: “This
might be because e-cigarettes mimic
the behaviour of smoking as well as
providing nicotine to ex-smokers.
Although we don’t yet have long-term
evidence on health harms of switching
to e-cigarettes, the evidence clearly
demonstrates that e-cigarettes are
much safer than tobacco.
“Short-term harms of e-cigarettes,
such as a sore throat or feeling nau-
seous, are of a similar magnitude to the
short-term side-effects of nicotine
replacement therapy.”
Nick Hopkinson, a reader in respira-
tory medicine at Imperial College
London and chairman of Ash, said: “I
see people every day whose lungs are
damaged by smoking — many have
tried to quit repeatedly. E-cigarettes
can help those who might otherwise
struggle to quit.”Kat Lay Health Correspondent
Two million donors sign up to stem cell register
A surge in donors has led to the number
of people registered to offer life-saving
stem cells to strangers topping two mil-
lion (Kat Lay writes).
The UK stem cell register had
326,756 new members in 2019-20,
100,000 more than the previous year. It
contains the details of people willing to
donate stem cells to patients with con-
ditions that affect their bone marrow or
blood, for whom a stem cell transplant
may be the best chance of survival.
The recipient receives stem cells via
their bloodstream. Once in the body18 2GM Thursday October 15 2020 | the times
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