Loyola University Medical Center: Living donor program hopes to increase pool for kidney transplantsMay 6, 2010
By MARIO BARTOLETTI mbartoletti@pioneerlocal.com
Thanks to a new program at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Robert Rylko got something unexpected from someone he never met, Melrose Park resident Christina Lamb -- her kidney.
"I can't even tell you how great it feels not to have to be there (in dialysis) anymore," Rylko said. "People here treated me amazingly well."
The Pay-it-Forward kidney transplant at Loyola was the first in the Midwest and the program allows a donor to the national kidney registry to offer a kidney to anyone in the United States.
"Say I needed a kidney and my wife wanted to give me one, but she's incompatible," Tom Mollo, executive Director of the National Kidney Registry said. "We accept an altruistic good Samaritan's donation that's matched to me. Once that's done my wife still wants to give and so she's matched with another stranger."
"This is a paradigm shift in the way donors and transplants are done," Loyola renal transplant doctor David Holt said.
Dr. John Milner is the director of the living donor program at Loyola. "This gets more people off the transplant rolls. Often at a six (transplants) to one (donation) ratio," he said. "This is an opportunity to expand the donor pool and dramatically reduce the times people spend waiting on transplant lists for a new kidney."
Sherry Gish, Rylko's mom, said it's been great for her son to get back to normal and have a life. "This program is awesome," she said. "It's great to donate. But why wait until something tragic comes along? Donate now." Gish said she is looking into ways she can donate a kidney herself.
"My habits haven't changed after donating mine," Lamb said. "My husband received a kidney from my cousin's wife. That was an incredible thing. We had just gotten married when we found out he was sick. It was a tough three years for us. He was on dialysis for the last year and a half. No matter how bad things got, we laughed every day."
Lamb said Dr. Susan Hou, medical director of the renal transplant program at Loyola, was also a hero of hers and her inspiration.
In 2002, Hou was the first physician in the U.S. known to have donated a kidney to an unrelated patient.
"That's inspiration right there. And the surgery was easier than having a baby," Lamb said. "I went home less than one week after it and I'm going back to work Monday and I feel great. I wasn't scared. The nurses and the doctors are very compassionate. They guided me through the process."
Lamb said she feels great about donating and she hopes the program catches on everywhere.
"Our lives changed completely when my husband got his transplant," she said. "It's so important for me to see someone else have that."
According to the kidney registry about 84,000 people are waiting on kidney donations in the U.S. with about half of those who receive kidneys getting them from deceased donors. Those who receive a kidney from a live donor, the registry said, tend to live longer healthier lives.
Either way, currently in the Midwest a recipient can be on a transplant list for five years waiting for a kidney.
But "A year from now, no one will remember that we did this any other way," Hou said. "This is more than saving lives, it's an operation that treats the human spirit."
For more information visit:
www.kidneyregistry.org http://www.pioneerlocal.com/maywood/news/2210290,maywood-MWkidney-042910-s1.article...............
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