Is it possible for organ recipients to be organ donors? The essential gift of organ donation is the ultimate act of paying it forward. But what if that gift didn’t have to stop with the initial transplant recipient? What if healthy organs could save more than just one life? For some on the waiting list for kidney and liver transplants, that dream could become a reality because certain transplanted organs are now able to be donated and re-transplanted again.
TRANSPLANTED ORGANS CAN BE DONATED AGAIN
A new, emerging practice in transplantation allows for the successful transplantation of an organ in more than one recipient, which means a transplant recipient could be an organ donor.
Last year, Doctor Jeffrey Veale, director of the UCLA Kidney Exchange Program made news for successfully transplanting a healthy kidney into a second patient, after the first recipient’s tragic death in an auto accident.
We continue to learn more about transplantation, how the body handles it, and how recovery works. In the case of many recipients, a healthy organ – even one that has been transplanted before – can still make a lifesaving impact. The procedure by Dr. Veale and his team successfully re-transplanted a donated kidney into a 70-year old woman who had been waiting for a new kidney while on dialysis for close to 10 years.
THIS COULD SAVE MORE LIVES
This new practice in transplantation brings hope to the over 100,000 people in the U.S. waiting to receive a lifesaving organ transplant. Nearly 1,500 of which are our neighbors and community members in Colorado and Wyoming, including men and women of all ages and children.
“I don’t want to see a healthy kidney that was functioning well after a transplant go to waste,” Dr. Veale says. “About 20 to 25 percent of patients who have a kidney transplant die with a functioning kidney. There are so many years of life left on those kidneys that could save other people.”
With the possibility of a transplant recipient being an organ donor, the opportunity to expand the viable donor pool could help hundreds of lives each year, estimates Dr. Veale. “Even if we do this and save five lives, it’s worth it.”
While medical advancements and emerging practices in transplantation could result in more lives saved, there is still a huge need for people to sign up to be organ, eye and tissue donors after death. The waitlist can’t wait when 20 people die every day waiting for transplant. Signing up to be an organ, eye and tissue donor is quick and easy to do! Say Yes at your local driver license office or anytime at Donate Life Wyoming.