Paired Kidney Donation: Finding a Compatible Donor through Paired Donation
Even though you may have a family member or friend to serve as a living donor, you still face the possibility that your donor is incompatible with you. For instance, you may have blood type A, while your donor is blood type B. Depending on your incompatibility, additional programs are available.
Paired exchange
With paired-organ donation, your donor exchanges his or her kidney with the living donor from another incompatible donor/recipient pair to create two compatible pairs. While it’s true that your donor will not directly donate his or her kidney to you, exchanging with another incompatible pair will allow for two compatible transplants.
These exchanges can also work for patients who have blood type-compatible donors, but are sensitized against their donor’s tissue.
Multiple centers working together use computer algorithms to maximize the number of potential paired exchanges. And with centers outside of Stanford participating, this potentially increases the chance of finding you a compatible match. In situations where we find a donor in another location, either the donor must travel to Stanford or the donated kidney needs to be shipped here.
Risks of Paired Exchanges
Paired kidney exchanges come with their own specific risks:
- Since multiple patients need to be medically cleared for surgery, there is a higher chance that the transplants will be delayed because one of the participating patients isn’t ready.
- There is a risk that one of the kidneys in the exchange is unusable.
- Both donor operations are usually performed at the same time so that none of the donors change their mind after the other donor gives up a kidney.
The donors do not have control over who receives their kidney or how the recipient treats their new kidney.