Living Donor:
A living donor kidney comes from a healthy adult. When a person comes volunteers to be a potential living donor, blood tests are performed to determine compatibility with the recipient.
The pre-transplant tests performed are blood grouping, tissue typing and cross matching.
Blood group testing between the donor and recipient must be compatible before tissue typing and cross matching are performed.
Once compatibility is confirmed the donor must undergo additional testing.
This testing includes evaluations by a nephrologist, a surgeon, a social worker, a nutritionist, a pharmacist, blood tests for kidney and liver function, viral studies, urine studies, chest x-ray, EKG, ultrasound, and computerized tomography (CT) scan of the kidneys. The CT shows the kidney anatomy and is used to determine which kidney will be used for transplantation.
Donors will meet with our Living Donor Advocate, who is not a member of the Transplant Team, but whose role is to be sure donors understand the risks and benefits of donor surgery and advocate for the rights of each donor.
If all the tests results are acceptable, the surgery will be scheduled. At Boston Medical Center, laparoscopic donor kidney removal is routinely performed. This procedure is less painful for the donor and the recovery time is shorter.
With this type of procedure donors spend an average of two days in the hospital and the recovery time is two to three weeks. Statistics show that kidney transplants from live donors function longer and the survival rate for live donor kidneys is greater than 95 % for the first year.
The average life of a kidney donated from a perfectly matched (tissue typing identical) sibling is 25 to 30 years and the average life of a kidney donated from a half matched or unrelated donor is 16 years.
No live donor candidate is allowed to donate a kidney unless the transplant team is certain, to the best of their ability, that the donor will live a normal, healthy life with one kidney.
Deceased donor:
A deceased donor kidney comes from a person who has chosen to be an organ donor and has been declared deceased.
Like the living donor, the deceased donor must have blood testing performed to show compatibility with the proposed recipient.
The kidney transplant survival rate for the first year with a deceased donor kidney is 85 to 90 %.
The average functional time period of a deceased donor kidney transplant is between 8-20 years.