February 16, 2004 - Every day, 17 people die nationwide waiting for an organ transplant. But a growing number of Americans stepping forward as living organ donors to ease the crisis. In fact, 2001 marked the first time that there were more living donors than deceased donors nationwide. Story from the Baltimore Sun.


April 23, 2002 - The number of organ donors across the United States increased almost 7 percent in 2001, fueled primarily by a substantial rise in Hispanic and African-American donors and in "living donation," Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said this week. Press release from the HHS.

Organ donations from the living reached a record high last year, outnumbering donors who are dead for the first time. In 2001, the number of living donors jumped by 13.4 percent, on top of a 16.5 percent increase a year earlier. By contrast, donations from dead people inched up by just 1.6 percent. Story from AP/Yahoo. (link is no longer available)

There has always been a shortage of cadaver kidneys for transplantation. In the past, living donors faced a great deal of pain and long recovery times. Many said the surgery was harder on the donor than the recipient.

Over the last few years, transplant surgeons have been perfecting a new procedure, the laparscopic nephrectomy, which greatly reduces the sizes of the incisions and the injury to the donor.

In March of 2000, WebMD broadcast over the Internet a sister-to-sister kidney transplant using the laparascopic donor nephrectomy procedure. Click here to view the procedure.

Here is a listing of articles on the laparoscopic nephrectomy procedure from the latest scientific journals (PubMed search).

If you are interested in donating a kidney, visit the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) web site: A New Online Resource for Living Donation.

Here is the current transplant waiting list numbers from the United Network Organ Sharing (UNOS) web site.

Here is the RenalWEB Topic Page on Kidney Transplantation.



[This message has been edited by Gary Peterson (edited 02-16-2004).]