By Emily Pruitt RN, MSN
Living Donor Coordinator, Christiana Care Health System
Paired Kidney Donation is an alternative option given to those who are not directly compatible with their recipient. Some transplant programs participate in Paired Kidney Donation, which allows an incompatible donor to still help their loved one who is in need of a kidney transplant.
Paired Kidney Donation allows more recipients to have the benefit of living donor kidneys and provides a way for motivated, healthy living donors to still help his or her potential recipient. Essentially, Paired Kidney Donation works by allowing a blood type or crossmatch incompatible kidney transplant recipient and their donor to exchange kidneys with other donor/recipient pairs who are also incompatible. In other words, the two pairs swap kidneys to make compatible donor/recipient pairs. More often the Paired Kidney Donation programs make “chains” with the living donors and recipients, in order to help the most number of people at one time. Paired Kidney Donation allows the recipient to have all of the benefits of living donation even if their loved one is not a match to them. Some benefits of living donation include.
Benefits of Living Donation:
- Significantly better short and long term survival rates for transplants from living donors than transplants from deceased donors.
- The recipient has time to plan for the transplant.
- The surgery can be scheduled at a mutually-agreed upon time rather than performed on an emergency basis.
- Even with Paired Kidney Donation, perhaps one of the most important aspect of living donation is the psychological benefit. The recipient can experience positive feelings knowing that the gift came from a loved one or a caring stranger. The donor experiences the satisfaction of knowing that he or she has contributed to the improved health of the recipient.
Facts about Paired Kidney Donation:
- In order to participate in Paired Kidney Donation, each recipient must have a living donor who is willing to participate in the Paired Kidney Donation program and has been cleared as a living kidney donor by a Kidney Transplant Program.
- The evaluation of the potential donor is the same as for a donor who is planning for a direct living donor surgery.
- Although the transplant center will work with other transplant programs across the United States to find compatible donors and recipients, the surgery of the recipient and living donor will be at the transplant center the kidney patient is working with.
