Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) is a very important life-saving procedure to treat many disorders. In August 2014, there were more than 24.5 million donor registered in the Worldwide Bone Marrow Donor Register. In the Polish Register of Unrelated Bone Marrow and Umbilical Cord Blood Donors at the end of 2013 there were almost 540 thousand registered bone marrow donors. Despite increasing numbers of registered donors, the amount of requests also increased. It shows that the number of donors is still insufficient. The analysis of knowledge and attitude of Lublin universities students' toward the opportunity to become an unrelated bone marrow donor was the aim of our study. 1609 Lublin students from non-medical universities from different years and specializations of study, of both sexes, aged 19-35 took part in the survey. It consisted of 16 questions. There were knowledge-testing questions, and also personal ones. Among interviewees, 16% were registered as potential bone marrow donors. The reason for not being registered registration chosen most often was that the surveyed did not take this into consideration. Correct answers to all of the questions were given by 21% of students. The biggest number of incorrect answers was given to the question about a place from bone marrow is harvested - nearly 49%. Registered students showed a better level of knowledge than the unregistered. We noted a low level of knowledge about bone marrow donation and possibility of becoming potential bone marrow donor among Lublin universities students.
Keywords: bone marrow; donation; potential bone marrow donors; register; students; survey research.