New York Organ Donor Network Launches Living Donor Kidney Exchange Program

Aug. 17, 2005--The New York Organ Donor Network, the federally designated nonprofit organ procurement organization serving 13 million people in the Greater New York metropolitan area, has announced the introduction of a Living Donor Kidney Exchange Program that is designed to increase the number of people whose lives are enhanced and extended through kidney transplantation.

At a news conference this morning at the Donor Network's Manhattan headquarters, it was explained that family members or friends often offer to donate a kidney to patients but up to thirty five percent of the time they are excluded because of biological incompatibility. Under the Living Donor Kidney Exchange Program, individuals who are unable to donate a kidney to their intended recipients due to incompatibility are exchanged to form compatible pairs. The transplants are performed simultaneously.

In order to proceed with this program, the Donor Network will partner with as many as nine kidney transplant centers in the New York metro area, five of which have signed on to the program. They are: The Mount Sinai Medical Center, The Rogosin Institute-New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center, Montefiore Medical Center, New York University Medical Center and SUNY Downstate Medical Center .

There are currently 62,674 people on the waiting list for a kidney transplant in the United States . Two out of three of these people have been waiting at least one year, and one out of ten has been waiting at least five years. In the New York metro area alone, there are 4,507 patients on the kidney waiting list.

The New York Organ Donor Network will maintain a registry of incompatible donor-recipient pairs. Each time a new pair is entered into the registry, the Donor Network's medical director will search the registry for a match. When a match is found, each donor's medical history will be shared with the transplant center caring for the new potential recipient. If both centers agree that the donors are suitable, further evaluations will take place. If the results are acceptable, and if the donors and recipients agree to proceed, the donation and transplantation surgeries will be scheduled.

For example, a man whose blood type is A (donor 1) cannot donate to his wife whose blood type is B (recipient 1). (See illustration below) Another man is unable to receive a kidney from his sister because his blood type is A (recipient 2) while she is type B (donor 2). By exchanging the donors and recipients, two new compatible pairs are created.

Although living donor kidney exchanges are relatively new in the U.S. (such as at the New England Organ Bank, New England Medical Center, and Johns Hopkins), ninety percent of kidney transplants from unrelated living donors are functioning one year after transplantation. Kidney exchange programs also exist abroad, for example, in the Netherlands , Mexico and Korea .

“We are thrilled with the strong support of our transplant community for this innovative program,” said Elaine Berg , president and CEO of the New York Organ Donor Network. “We believe that this new program will further our mission of saving lives through donation and transplantation by facilitating living donations in addition to what we have been doing for more than 25 years, saving lives through recovering organs and tissues for transplant from deceased donors.”

Other speakers at the news conference were Dr. Vivian Tellis, professor of surgery and the director of the transplant program at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and chairperson of the Donor Network's medical board; and Dr. Aaron Spital, the Donor Network's medical director.