Living Donor Kidney Transplant

Memphis, Tenn.- Nearly 70,000 people are waiting for a kidney, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Many of those patients will have a long wait, on average from three to five years before they find a match. One reason for that wait is because there are not enough living donors. In efforts to highlight, educate, and empower potential donors to consider donorship, the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute, which is affiliated with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, webcasted a living donor kidney transplant live on the Web Thursday, April 21, at 3 p.m. Kidney transplantation is now considered a proactive treatment option for patients who have been diagnosed with kidney disease. "To give someone a kidney before they have to start dialysis is to give them their quality of life back. It's their best chance at extending life," said A. Osama Gaber, program director for the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute and professor of transplantation surgery at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center