Kidney Donor Chain Helps Those Waiting for Transplant

Posted: Sunday, 27 December 2009 9:35AM

Kidney Donor Chain Helps Those Waiting for Transplant

PALO ALTO, Calif. (KCBS) -- More than 80,000 people in this country are waiting for a kidney transplant, with the average patient expected to spend five to seven years in line.

But a complex system that's gaining in popularity, known as a kidney donor chain is cutting the waiting time for some considerably.

The chain involves transplant pairs, made up of one person who needs a kidney and a partner who is willing to donate one.

Stanford Assistant professor of surgery Marc Melcher is a transplant surgeon.

"They see what dialysis does to them. It's three times a week for three or four hours. They're exhausted afterwards and often spouses or siblings want to donate but they're incompatible," Melcher said. "So they can donate such that their loved one can get a kidney after all. So you need a donor who is giving a kidney just for purely altruistic reasons. That kidney starts by giving to recipient one and then recipient one's donor gives to recipient two, recipient two donor gives to recipient three, recipient three's donor gives to recipient four and so on."

Dr. Melcher recently took part in such a transplant chain, removing a healthy kidney from a Sunnyvale woman on the morning of October 6th.

It was flown across the state and transplanted into a stranger and that same afternoon, he transplanted the kidney of another donor pair into the woman's husband.

"There were eight transplants over that one week time period," Melcher said. "So, that's 16 patients having surgery. So, all 16 patients have to be healthy enough at the time of the surgery."

They use a computer algorithm to optimize matching. Once the matches are found, they run tests to make sure the donors and recipients are compatible.

So, why do it this way? Why not just transplant into a recipient when the donor is ready and remove the kidney from the donor partner at another time, when his or her recipient is available?

"The recipient of a pair gets a kidney before their donor donates a kidney and it might be by a few days or even some cases, a few months," said Melcher. "The thought is, the longer the time period, the more likely that donor may not donate for some reason or another."

And any one wrong thing, with even one patient can shut the entire process down.

http://www.kcbs.com/Kidney-Donor-Chain-Helps-Those-Waiting-for-Transpl/5977720