Search & Match Service provides a fast preliminary search facility to find the best matched haematopoietic stem cell donor or cord blood unit in the world for a patient in need of a haematopoietic stem cell transplant. In January 2017, 'Search & Match Service' became a product of WMDA.


Benefits of Search & Match Service:

  • 'Search & Match Service' is the primary source of all haematopoietic stem cell donors and cord blood units globally
  • 'Search & Match Service' holds over 33 million donors and over 700,000 cord blood units from 98 registries and cord blood banks from 54 countries
  • 'Search & Match Service' helps the community find a donor as quickly as possible by providing:
    • User friendly interface and functionalities
    • Probability matching for each donor/cord powered by OptiMatch
    • Additional information on each donor and cord blood unit (if provided by organisation)


The 'Search & Match Service' public pages contain the user guide for the Search & Match Service, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), a demo video showing how to use the system, archive of our newsletter BiteSize Learning, and other useful links that can assist you during your search activities.


Additionally, we provide information about the file format used for data submission, XML. 


Future directions of Search & Match Service

WMDA has organised several workshops to work on the future of the Search & Match Service. During the workshops the members of the WMDA worked on:

  • Flowcharts and process flows of the end-to-end search, match and connect process
  • Description on how searches are organised within EU Member States. Including a map of the most efficient and effective search, match and connect journey and identification of opportunities and priorities for automation and streamlining (i.e. removal of redundant / non-value adding steps).
  • Explanation of the improved matching algorithm


Find here two outcomes of the workshops: