More than 8,000 new stem cell donors registered after PSV spokesperson's appeal

More than 8,300 people have registered as stem cell donors after the appeal of PSV press officer Thijs Slegers, who announced two weeks ago that he had blood cancer and was no longer receiving treatment. The Matchis Foundation already has more than 11,000 new registrations in 2023, never did so many people sign up at the beginning of the year, the foundation said.

Slegers has been suffering from acute leukemia, also known as blood cancer, for some time, as he announced on Twitter. After the press secretary of the football club PSV Eindhoven called on his followers to donate blood and stem cells, more than 2200 registrations were received by the Dutch center for stem cell donors Matchis in the beginning of February 2023.

Most of the new registrations are men, about 70 percent, Matchis said. That's good news for the foundation, because there is a shortage of male stem cell donors. In the entire Dutch stem cell donor pool, 70 percent are women.

Matchis will start an advertising campaign next week to benefit from the recent attention. The foundation wants to keep the attention going, but also make people aware to actually send the swabs back. "You are not finally registered as a donor until you return your set of cotton swabs," explained campaign manager Bert Elbertse. With the cotton swabs, people have to collect some mucus and send it in to be tested to see if someone is a suitable donor.

In the Netherlands, about 200 people are diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia each year. Half of these are under the age of 18, according to the Integral Cancer Centre of the Netherlands (IKNL).