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Nov 30, 2009 6:34 pm US/Central
'Chain' Links Kidney Patients With Donors
(WCCO)
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Thanks to the Kidney Transplant Chain, Andrew was grateful he could help his father, even if his kidney would go home with a stranger.
Mayo Clinic
There are nearly 83,000 Americans waiting for a kidney transplant. A 10-hour event called a Kidney Transplant Chain allowed Mayo Clinic in Rochester to scratch four names off the list this past week. It involved a team of seven surgeons, three operating rooms, four kidney patients and four living donors.
Tom and and his son, Andrew Dinsdale, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, were part of the chain. Tom had diseased kidneys for 40 years. Six months ago, they failed completely. He began life saving dialysis treatments three times a week. Andrew had been begging his father to take one of his kidneys to spare Tom an estimated six years on a donor organ waiting list.
When Tom finally agreed, tests revealed his son was not a medical match. Director of Mayo's Kidney Transplant Program, Dr. Mikel Prieto, said it is not uncommon for family members not to match.
"We have a fair [number] of people who do have a donor, but for one reason or another, blood group or tissue type their donor is not compatible with them," said Dr. Prieto. "But, that doesn't mean they can't be compatible with somebody else."
That is where a donor chain comes in, linking kidney recipients to unrelated, living donors.
The crisscross organ swap matches compatible organs with patients in need. Each kidney harvest and transplant is routine, but coordinating it all takes time and planning. Yet, Dr. Prieto said, it could all come undone over something as simple as the sniffles.
"Somebody wakes up in the morning with a sore throat or with the flu or something, or there's a new finding in an x-ray, we cancel one surgery, we cancel all 8 of course."
By mid-afternoon, the minimally-invasive laparoscopic procedures had been completed. One kidney had been flown to a recipient at Mayo's facility in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Thanks to the Kidney Transplant Chain, Andrew was grateful he could help his father, even if his kidney would go home with a stranger.
"My goal was always just to help my dad," Dinsdale said. "He just means the world to me and I'd do anything for him."
Dr. Prieto said kidneys from living donors function well for 25 years on average, while half of the kidneys from deceased donors fail within 10 years.
Often a Kidney Transplant Chain is set in motion by a donor who just wants to do a good deed, and give a healthy kidney to someone they have never met.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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