WSJ : Researchers Report High Success Rate For Kidney Swaps

[question everything]

Researchers Report High Success Rate For Kidney Swaps

ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 5, 2005; Page D13

CHICAGO -- Researchers are reporting a high success rate for a novel kidney-swap program that proponents say could someday ease the nation's shortage of transplant organs.

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In a practice used increasingly in the U.S. over the past few years, a patient who needs a kidney is matched up with a compatible stranger; in return, the patient must line up a friend or relative willing to donate an organ to a stranger, too.

The practice is particularly useful in cases where a kidney patient's friends or relatives are willing to donate an organ to their loved one but aren't a suitable match.

In the first U.S. success-rate study of what are called "kidney paired donations," Johns Hopkins University researchers tracked 22 patients who received kidneys from living strangers.

Of the 22 transplants, only one failed, because of clotting problems unrelated to organ rejection. That patient eventually received a kidney from a dead donor. Four patients also had treatable immune-system reactions. There were no deaths.

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The study appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB112845053514859756.html (subscription, but should be available on regular news pages)