UW Health surgeons perform transplant procedures working with living donors for kidney transplants. Advantages to living donation include a scheduled procedure, better conditions for the surgery, improved patient survival and better long-term function of the transplanted organ.

Living organ donors fall in one of two categories. The first and most prevalent consists primarily of relatives or close friends of the organ recipient. Transplants involving relatives have proven to be the most successful over time because of the blood relationship between donor and patient.

As of June 19, 2009, there were more than 1,075 individuals on the waiting list for a kidney transplant in the state of Wisconsin and more than 80,000 in the nation, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).

 

Due to the length of the kidney waiting list, the waiting period for a deceased donor kidney can be several years. Thus, having a living donor can decrease a patient's waiting time for a kidney transplant, allowing them to avoid or discontinue dialysis earlier. This will also help reduce the number of patients on the national waitlist and allow other patients who may not have a living donor option available to them to receive a deceased donor kidney quicker.

Although most of us are born with two kidneys, only one working kidney is needed to sustain life. This allows a healthy person the opportunity to donate a kidney to someone with kidney failure.

 

A live donor can be a blood-related family member or they can be a non-blood-related individual such as a spouse, friend or acquaintance. Potential donors should be in relatively good health, both physically and emotionally.

An increasingly popular form of living donation is altruistic, non-directed organ donation, in which people donate organs without a specific recipient in mind. Non-directed donation organs are distributed the same way deceased donor organs are, via the UNOS waiting list. 
 

Learn More About Our Program