Cancer care is often described as surgery, chemotherapy, radiation. What the description skips: between cycles, the patient’s blood counts collapse, and what holds them upright is donated blood. ## Why the need repeats Chemotherapy kills fast-dividing cells, cancer first, but also the bone-marrow cells that make red cells and platelets. After each cycle: - Haemoglobin falls → fatigue, breathlessness → red-cell transfusions
- Platelets fall → bruising, bleeding risk → platelet transfusions
- Counts recover just in time for the next cycle, and fall again This repeats for months. A cancer patient can quietly consume dozens of units, all of it voluntary, all of it from people who registered. ## Why regular donors beat emergency appeals here An accident needs blood once. A chemo schedule needs it predictably, every few weeks. That is why oncology wards are the biggest customers of a working donor register, the supply must exist before the calendar says so. Regular donors are, plainly, what keeps chemotherapy running in Assam. ## If a cancer patient you love is in treatment - Ask the treating centre which components they will need and set up the schedule with their blood bank.
- Keep a request ready to file the day the doctor says “counts are low”, one post alerts every matching donor.
- For platelets specifically, ask if the centre runs apheresis, single-donor platelets reduce reaction risk across many transfusions. ## If you are a donor Your registration is a standing promise to a stranger in exactly this situation. O and AB group donors: ask your centre about platelet donation, you are the type they need most. Related: regular donors for thalassemia · iron levels and donation · register as a donor