Better organ function and a higher rate of success.
A living donor transplant, in which the patient receives a kidney from a live person, provides better kidney function than deceased donor kidney transplantation where the kidney comes from a person who has died. Since 2001, about 40 percent of the transplants at Barnes-Jewish Hospital are from living donors.
Advantages of Living Donor Transplant:
- Organ availability is greater. (Waiting time for a deceased kidney can be up to five years.)
- Living donor kidneys last almost twice as long and typically work immediately.
- Living donor transplants result in shorter hospital stays with fewer complications.
Today, thanks to minimally invasive surgical techniques, living-kidney donation is much easier on the donor, with less pain and faster recovery.
- Mini-nephrectomy – Surgeons make a small (three inches or less) “keyhole” incision, the smallest opening through which a kidney can be removed.
- Laparoscopic kidney removal – Surgeons make three or four one-inch “ports” in the donor’s abdomen to remove the kidney with surgical instrument assistance.
Learn more about
becoming a living donor.
For additional information or to begin a kidney transplant evaluation, call
.