Question about live kidney donation/transplant

LashL

Goddess of Legaltainment™
LashL
Joined
Aug 12, 2006
Messages
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Without going into too many personal details, and to make a long story short, I have a relative (a niece) with some pretty severe medical problems and who has now been placed on the kidney transplant list and the pancreas transplant list. Leaving aside the pancreas issue (since I realize that that's a transplant that can only be done after the donor is dead or at least brain dead), I'd like to learn more about the live kidney donor option, as I understand that one can live with just one kidney while donating the other to a compatible recipient.

What I would like to learn is the details of what is involved in being tested for compatibility and what is involved in the actual transplant process (if, for instance, I were to go through the compatibility process and it turned out that one of my kidneys is a match to my niece's requirements).

I know that we have a lot of very, very knowledgeable people here on all manner of subjects, including medical subjects such as this one, and I would sincerely appreciate your input if you have any personal knowledge and/or expertise about this particular issue that you would be willing to share.

Best regards,
LashL
 
A woman in my church who is my age (fifty-something) was found to be a suitable donor last year for a kidney for her sister, but as she was seriously overweight, the doctors told her she had to lose at least 30 pounds before they could consider performing the operation on her to take her kidney. And of course the clock was ticking for her sister while she tried to lose the weight.

She made it. Both of them are doing fine.

So, just one of those things they won't tell you--you may be a good match on paper, but if you have health issues yourself, those will need to be addressed first. Such as, needing to lose 30 pounds, like, right now.
 
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A simple blood test should tell if you are a suitable donor or not. After that you have to take care of any of your own personal health issues as Goshawk said. Good luck to you and your niece. My father is living at a nursing home due to a brain injury. There is a woman who is roughly my age living there too who needs a kidney transplant. She has other issues too, but she is taking three visits for dialysis a week to keep her going until she gets a transplant. It is very uncomfortable and I am sure has its own health issues, but at least it keeps her going.
 
Why kidney from relative is considered better than of non-relative ones?
 
Kumar said:
Why kidney from relative is considered better than of non-relative ones?
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Relatives are genetically similar so are more likely to be a match. The closer a match the donor and recipient are, the less likely it is that the transplanted kidney will be rejected.
 
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Kumar said:
Why kidney from relative is considered better than of non-relative ones?
Click to expand...

Couldn't you look this up yourself? Your exact question gives the following http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/kidneys/HndbkHTML/ch12.htm

What are the chances my transplanted kidney will work?

The success rate following transplantation depends upon the closeness of the tissue match between donor and recipient. A kidney from a brother or sister with a “complete” match has a 95% chance of working at the end of one year. A kidney from a parent, child, or “half-matched” sibling has an 85% chance of working for at least one year. Finally, a cadaver donor kidney has an 80% change of working at least one year. All of these statistics assume this is your first transplant, and that you will be taking the anti-rejection drugs described elsewhere in this chapter. If you are having a repeat transplant, the success rate will be 10%-15% less. . These kidneys are not immortal, however, with 50% of cadaver kidneys declining over 6 – 10 years, a rate faster than the relatively stable success of related kidneys.
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Also - good luck asking a stranger for their kidney!

LashL - this link looks to have some info related to your questions, but I don't know how accurate it will be

Cheers,

Dave
 
Thank you all for your help. My niece just turned 35 and I'm in my 40s; I'm fit, not overweight, and I don't have any medical problems so there's no issue there, but from the links provided, it looks like I may not be a suitable donor from the start due to our differing blood types (she's type O and I'm type B). I will check with the transplant folks, though, just in case that's not a dealbreaker. My niece is currently undergoing dialysis every other day for 3.5-4 hours at a time and I'm sure that's no picnic, so I was hoping to hasten the transplant process for her if I could by giving her a kidney if I was a suitable match.

Thanks again to all for your assistance.
 
DrDave said:
Also - good luck asking a stranger for their kidney!
Click to expand...


Just wanting to point out that you don't normally actually ask a stranger for a kidney; kidneys from strangers are generally cadaver kidneys, which are harvested under Organ Donor programs from someone who has already died, and the dead person's relatives don't generally get any say in who gets their dearly departed's kidneys, heart, liver, corneas, etc.
 
LashL said:
Thank you all for your help. My niece just turned 35 and I'm in my 40s; I'm fit, not overweight, and I don't have any medical problems so there's no issue there, but from the links provided, it looks like I may not be a suitable donor from the start due to our differing blood types (she's type O and I'm type B). I will check with the transplant folks, though, just in case that's not a dealbreaker. My niece is currently undergoing dialysis every other day for 3.5-4 hours at a time and I'm sure that's no picnic, so I was hoping to hasten the transplant process for her if I could by giving her a kidney if I was a suitable match.

Thanks again to all for your assistance.
Click to expand...

There are ways around the blood type incompatibility if you are willing to consider donating to another patient, while their relative donates to your niece (or a more complicated arrangement with more patients involved).

A recipient who has an incompatible live donor kidney or has antibodies that make it very difficult to find a compatible deceased donor kidney will not be able to undergo conventional transplantation. Today, there are numerous strategies being attempted to try to overcome these obstacles. Matching strategies to identify another live donor-recipient pair whose incompatibility with each other may still permit successful organ exchange between the pairs. In the simplest exchange, for example, donor 1 with blood type A (whose own recipient 1 has blood type B), might exchange organs with donor 2 who has blood type B (whose own recipient 2 has blood type A). Other exchanges are more complex, but are actively being sought in numerous regions of the country.
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http://www.aakp.org/aakp-library/transplant-compatibility/index.cfm
 
LL - Best wishes for the health of your niece. If you are able to help her, it would be an extraordinary gift.
 
Another thing to consider is that you not actually match. Even close relatives may not match sufficiently. I had a cousin who had leukemia and had a couple of bone marrow transplants, even though I was a registered bone marrow donor it turned out we weren't compatible.

Worth trying though, you may be lucky.
 
A woman at my church donated a kidney to her husband about two years ago. Both are doing well, in particular she is fine. She was not a particularly great match, but they are apparently able to overcome that these days.

I have read that surgeons expect some donor, some day, to suffer significant adverse effects, but it hasn't happened yet.

Rolfe.
 
DrDave said:
Couldn't you look this up yourself? Your exact question gives the following http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/kidneys/HndbkHTML/ch12.htm



Also - good luck asking a stranger for their kidney!

LashL - this link looks to have some info related to your questions, but I don't know how accurate it will be

Cheers,

Dave
Click to expand...

Mojo & Dave,

Thanks. So in case of close relatives, whether patient need not to take anti rejection durgs?
 
Rolfe said:
A woman at my church donated a kidney to her husband about two years ago. Both are doing well, in particular she is fine. She was not a particularly great match, but they are apparently able to overcome that these days.

I have read that surgeons expect some donor, some day, to suffer significant adverse effects, but it hasn't happened yet.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...
Well given that it's a fairly serious surgical procedure I think that's inevitable; reaction to the anesthesia, infection, surgical error, respiratory problems et cetera.
 
LashL,

Do understand that having a kidney out for a donation is a major operation, and not one you are guaranteed to make it through.

I have a friend who donated a kidney to an absolute stranger. Her reward for this was absolute medical malpractice on the part of the harvesting team.

She is in constant pain, on disability, and her gut is totally full of scarring and adhesions both from the operation and from the subsequent operations to attempt to address the issue.

So, go into this with your eyes open.

-Ben
 
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