5 Facts About Being a Kidney Donor

The AHA! Team — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 05:42:57 +0000

Duke Health – More than 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for a kidney donation, according to government statistics. Being a living kidney donor is truly a gift of a lifetime, but many people don’t realize they can give this gift safely. Duke performs about 200 kidney transplants annually, with one third being from living donors. Gayle Vranic, MD, a kidney transplant specialist at Duke University Hospital, dispels five common misconceptions that potential kidney donors may have. Myth: I have to be related to someone to donate a kidney to them. Fact: New anti-rejection medications make it possible to donate to distant relatives and even friends. Duke’s transplant team takes prospective donors through a careful physical and psychological screening process — much of which can be done remotely for donors who live far away — to make sure the donor can undergo the surgery with no ill effects, physical or otherwise. Myth: The surgery is difficult and expensive, and I’ll need to take a lot of time off. Fact: Today’s kidney donation surgery usually takes only a few hours and requires only a few small incisions. Most people — 95% — are discharged the next day. “It usually takes two to three weeks to get back to almost all of your normal activities, including work, and about six to eight weeks to feel completely normal,” Dr. Vranic said. All hospital expenses are paid for by the recipient’s medical coverage — only costs of travel, time off work, and a few post-surgery medications aren’t covered. There are several organizations that may help cover those costs for donors who cannot. Myth: After the surgery, my life will be different, and it might limit what I can do. Fact: Careful screening of donors means that only people who are in very good health will be selected — and for those people, the risk of future complications is very low. Women of childbearing age can still have healthy pregnancies after donating, and the risk for future kidney disease is not affected by the donation of a single kidney. “Your health care needs after the surgery are essentially the same as before the surgery,” said Dr. Vranic. Kidney donors will need regular blood and urine tests to monitor kidney function, and they need to watch their blood pressure and body weight; so, they must visit their primary care doctor every year but, as Dr. Vranic pointed out, that’s something everyone should do anyway. Myth: If my intended recipient and I aren’t a match, the process ends there. Fact: A variety of options makes it possible for you and your recipient to match or to find another compatible pair elsewhere. One option is for the recipient and the donor to receive medical treatments before and after transplant that allow the recipient to receive a kidney from someone with a different blood type. Another option may be for you and your recipient to enter Duke’s paired exchange program. Your recipient receives a kidney from someone else’s donor, and another recipient receives your kidney. Finally, if for some reason you and your donor cannot be a pair, we can help empower your donor to be an advocate and help you in your search for another living donor. Myth: Duke doesn’t accept “Good Samaritan” kidney donations. Fact: Duke accepts altruistic (non-directed) donors — those who are willing to donate a kidney to a recipient in need, even if that person is a stranger. More than 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for a kidney donation, according to government statistics. To learn more about organ donation, visit unos.org or the National Kidney Foundation. Or learn more about the process by filling out this questionnaire. To read the original article click here.

The post 5 Facts About Being a Kidney Donor appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Doctors Bring Dead Donor Heart Back to Life in US First

AHA Publisher — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 08:00:28 +0000

Sally Robertson, B.Sc. via News Medical-Net – A heart transplant team at Duke University, North Carolina, has become the first in the US to reanimate the heart of a deceased donor and transplant it into a recipient. The process, known of as Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD), involves the use of an artificial circulatory mechanism that pumps warm, oxygenated blood through the heart while it is outside of the body. Once the organ is revived, it can be transplanted into a patient who is in need of a healthy heart. In this case, the recipient was a military veteran who received the donated organ through the Mission act. The DCD transplant, which was performed on Sunday 1st December, was reportedly a success, and the patient is recovering well. A Crucial Step in Reducing the Donor Organ Shortage Experts are calling this a major and crucial step towards addressing the current shortage of donor organs. Duke is one of five medical centers in the US that have been approved to carry out DCD heart transplantation as part of a new clinical trial to test the artificial circulatory device. The cutting-edge practice uses a technique called warm perfusion to circulate blood, oxygen, and electrolytes through the disembodied heart, prompting it to beat again. Previously, a heart would be harvested from a living donor who had been declared medically brain-dead. However, the heart tissue generally starts to deteriorate before a person has been declared dead due to the low levels of oxygen generated by the slowing heart. By the time a patient is confirmed dead, the heart is already too damaged to use for transplantation. The DCD Procedure Was First Used in 2015 The DCD method was first used in a 2015 clinical trial conducted at the Royal Papworth Hospital in the UK. According to doctor Jacob Niall Schroder, who performed the procedure at Duke University, a further 75 DCD transplants have been performed at the Royal Papworth since the trial four years ago. “If Royal Papworth’s experience has shown us anything, this will decrease waitlist time, deaths on the waitlist, with excellent survival results. This is the first time in the US, which is a huge deal because transplant need and volume is so high.” (Jacob Niall Schroder, Surgical director of Duke’s Heart Transplant Program in the Department of Surgery) “This is the donor pool actively expanding” Schroder says, “this is the donor pool actively expanding” and that DCD has the potential to broaden the donor pool by as much as 30%. “Increasing the number of donated hearts would decrease the wait time and the number of deaths that occur while people are waiting. It’s important to conduct this clinical trial to determine whether those outcomes are realized,” he adds. “We are grateful for the courage and generosity of both the donors and recipients.” To read the original article click here.

The post Doctors Bring Dead Donor Heart Back to Life in US First appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

organ donor shortage Archives - Amazing Health Advances

5 Facts About Being a Kidney Donor

Doctors Bring Dead Donor Heart Back to Life in US First