....then they usually work backwards if 6/6 is not an option.
The main thing that induces the immune system of the recipient to panic and reject tissue is its perception of the subtle biological changes which indicate that it comes from a brain-dead donor rather than its perception of the antigen differences.
A younger live donor is also more valuable as a source of a new kidney,
On p. 182 he takes up this theme again when he writes: " ... for those receiving cadaveric kidneys in 1995, the half-life [the time at which half of the kidneys had failed in the recipients] had increased to 11.6 years. However, the half-life of two-haplotype matched living kidney recipients over this same time period was 22.8 years. This suggests that we have a long way to go before the half-life for cadaveric renal transplants can be considered optimal."
The average medical publication usually has from three to eight authors listed, and of those, if there are any statistical inferences involved in the article, there is invariably a professor of medical statistics among the authors, guaranteeing that the statistical significance of the inferences is impeccably accurate. In the study which censored for loss of transplanted kidneys due to the death of the recipient, the difference found between the half-life of the live-donor source kidneys (35.9 years) and the cadaver-source kidneys (19.5 years) was 16.4 years. If you consider that the average renal patient doesn't need a kidney transplant before age 40, a living donor kidney would probably be the last the patient would ever need in his life, but a cadaver source kidney would only last the patient until his mid-50s, which from my point of view is a HUGE difference.
In the study which censored for loss of transplanted kidneys due to the death of the recipient, the difference found between the half-life of the live-donor source kidneys (35.9 years) and the cadaver-source kidneys (19.5 years) was 16.4 years.