Initiated by the Health Ministry and the Turkish Red Crescent, the Turkey Stem Cell Coordination Center (TÜRKÖK) project continues to grow, with more than 339,129 donors.
TÜRKÖK started to collect stem cells in August 2014, and opens its database to international bone marrow banks in order to access the common donor pool to increase the chances of a match.
According to the data provided by TÜRKÖK, 30.2 percent of the donors are people between the ages 18 and 25, while 34.4 percent of the donors are between the ages 26 and 35. While 28.3 percent of TÜRKÖK donors are between the ages 36 and 45 and 7.1 percent of them are between the ages 46 and 50. The TÜRKÖK project aims to offer hope for patients suffering from leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. Since the initiation of the project, 2,984 patients received bone marrow from the center, while 89 patients starting their stem cell treatment with bone marrow matches from international centers thanks to TÜRKÖK's international agreements.
