The Treasure Valley's last bone-marrow donor registry is closing because it is too white.

St. Luke's Mountain States Tumor Institute says it can't meet a new national goal to add 1,000 racial minorities a year to its list of people willing to donate bone marrow to patients with leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening blood diseases.

The new requirement was created to help give minorities a better chance of finding a match that could save their lives.

But it means Caucasians in the Valley who could be swabbed and typed for free with the local list, will now have to pay $52 to register their marrow type and their willingness to share it with someone in need.

The Boise program, which now adds about 1,000 total people each year, likely will be absorbed into a bigger registry based in Spokane by Oct. 1.

"It wasn't something we wanted to do," said Mark Allen, marrow donor center coordinator at MSTI. "If it was up to us, we would keep it open."

Idaho's population is 96 percent white, according to 2006 state statistics.

"I certainly understand that the goals are a stretch," said Dr. Ellen Klohe, director of the marrow program at Inland Northwest Blood Center in Spokane. "Everybody will admit that."

Minorities will continue to get on the list for free, but Caucasians will need to pay.

The hospital now covers the cost of getting cheek swabs for tissue typing, regardless of ethnicity.

Because tissue types are inherited, patients with life-threatening blood diseases are more likely to match someone from their own race or ethnicity.

Currently, whites have an 85 percent chance of finding a donor through the program, while minorities have only a 65 percent chance.

Everyone, regardless of ethnicity or race, deserves the same chance at life that a transplant can offer, Klohe said.

"The whole reason for the recruitment goals is to try to meet the needs of patients who currently don't have the same access," Klohe said.

The program has been popular in the Valley since St. Luke's and Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center established programs in 1991. Saint Al's closed its program this spring.

Since the program started, St. Luke's has matched 120 donors and patients.

Boise Mayor Dave Bieter was one of them - he was on the registry and donated marrow in 2003 for a man who needed a transplant.

"The recent consolidation of bone marrow registries in no way decreases the importance of bone marrow donation," Bieter said Wednesday in an e-mailed statement.

"I was fortunate to be a match to someone who needed a bone marrow transplant, and I found it to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life," he said.

When the Boise program closes, the Inland Northwest Blood Center is willing to take over, though it has to wait for an OK from the National Marrow Donor Program.

The non-profit organization based in Minneapolis, Minn., facilitates marrow transplants for patients who do not have a matched donor in their family.

Klohe was uncertain whether increased minority participation was required by the federal government or was a goal of the national marrow organization.

No one at the national organization was immediately available.

The Inland Northwest program already serves Montana, North Idaho and central and eastern Washington.

Colleen LaMay: 377-6448