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The Importance of Organ Donations for Transplants

From January to June 2010, more than 14,000 organs from half as many donors were transplanted in the U.S. The number of patients waiting for donors, and patients dying while they wait, varies depending on whether the organ is a kidney, liver, heart, lung, pancreas or small intestine and whether organs are available only from deceased donors or can come from the living. Still, donation is the only proven source of organs for transplant as of 2010.

  1. Deceased Donors

    • Depending on the cause of death, the donor's health and tissue matching to patients on national transplant lists, each body can yield organs for life-saving transplant in up to eight patients, as well as various tissues for improved quality of life. Eligible donors almost always die in hospitals and have either registered in advance with their state organ-procurement agencies or have discussed their intention to donate with their families.

    Living Donation by Relatives

    • You may know someone who received a kidney from a living close relative. Living donors may also provide lobes of their lungs or livers and segments of pancreas for transplant into patients who are closely matched on various tissue characteristics.

    Paired Donation by Living Non-relatives

    • Spouses rarely match on the tissue types required for transplantation, and sometimes not even blood relatives match. Growing numbers and networks of non-relatives have made "paired" or "daisy-chain" donations of kidneys to each others' loved ones. The technique has become established enough that the first pilot of a national matching program was set to run in October 2010 across 77 transplant programs.

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