Living Donor Transplants

In many cases, a transplant is the best option for people who have lost their kidney function. Unfortunately, the number of people who need kidney transplants far exceed the number of kidneys available for transplantation. Kidneys can come from two types of donors: living donors and deceased donors (someone who has experienced irreversible brain death). Because the supply of deceased donor kidneys has shown only modest increases in the last decade, comparatively large increases in living kidney donation have been observed over the past several years. More than half of all kidney transplants are now from living donors.

Living donor kidney transplants have several advantages over deceased donor kidney transplants. In general, living donor kidney transplants
  • last longer
  • have much shorter waiting times
  • have lower rejection risks
The best results in kidney transplantation are achieved when the donor and the recipient are "compatible" - that is their blood types are compatible, and the recipient does not have immunity to the donor (ie, the recipient is "crossmatch compatible" with the donor). However, in about three cases out of ten, a potential donor cannot donate because of ABO blood group or crossmatch incompatibility.

For a patient with kidney disease who needs a transplant, and has a willing and healthy donor who cannot donate because of incompatibility, there are now two options:
  • paired donation
  • desensitization
These options are explained under "Paired Donation versus Desensitization"
A Success Story: The Vollmars and the Meyers
Daniel Vollmar (second from the left in the picture) wanted to donate to his mother, Josephine (on the left in the picture), but Josephine developed immunity to Daniel's tissues when she was pregnant with him. Rose Meyer (on the right in the picture)  wanted to donate to her husband, Paul, but her blood type (blood type A) was not compatible with Paul's blood type (blood type O).  The Meyers were entered into the PDC web-based computer matching program by their transplant coordinator at the Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, and the Vollmars were entered by their  transplant coordinator at the Medical University of Ohio.

After they were matched by the computer, and  crossmatching testing was performed to assure sure that Daniel's kidney was compatible with Paul and that Rose's kidney was compatible with Josephine.   After these tests were completed, they met each other (see CNN story "A Vital Trade" below. 

A few weeks later, in a paired donation procedure, Rose donated her kidney to Josephine, and Daniel donated to Paul. Josephine would have likely waited three years or more for a kidney on the deceased donor wait list. Paul never had to go on dialysis, where he would have also waited for three or more years.  All four are doing well today, and have become close friends because of the extraordinary experience they had in the paired donation procedure.

 
Original PDC 30 centers
Great Plains PDC 5 centers
New Jersey PDC 6 centers
SouthEast PDC 15 centers
SouthWest PDC 22 centers
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