Asynchronous, Out-Of-Sequence, Transcontinental Chain Kidney Transplantation: a Novel Concept
American Journal of Transplantation 2009; 9: 2180–2185 C 2009 The Authors Wiley Periodicals Inc. Journal compilation C 2009 The American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons Brief Communication doi: 10.1111/j.1600-6143.2009.02730.x Asynchronous, Out-of-Sequence, Transcontinental Chain Kidney Transplantation: A Novel Concept F. K. Butta,H.A.Gritschb,P.Schulamb, Received 17 January 2009, revised 12 April 2009 and G. M. Danovitchc, A. Wilkinsonc,J.DelPizzod, accepted for publication 29 April 2009 S. Kapure,D.Serurf, S. Katznelsong, S. Busqueh, M. L. Melcherh,S.McGuirei, M. Charltonj,G.Hilk and J. L. Vealeb,* Introduction aDepartment of Surgery, bDepartment of Urology and According to the United Network for Organ Sharing cDepartment of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (UNOS), over 70 000 people are currently listed, awaiting dDepartment of Urology, eDepartment of Surgery and kidney transplantation nationwide, but only 13 148 living fDepartment of Medicine, NYP/Cornell, New York, NY and deceased kidney donors were available in 2008 (1). gDepartment of Medicine, California Pacific Medical One possible solution is to develop a national living donor Center, San Francisco, CA kidney exchange program (2–5). Patients with willing, in- h Department of Surgery, Stanford University Medical compatible living donors would receive a compatible kid- Center, Palo Alto, CA ney through a ’donor exchange‘ with another incompatible iDepartment of Kidney Transplant Services, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA pair. Successful programs utilizing paired exchanges exist jDepartment of Kidney Transplant Services, NYP/Cornell, in the Netherlands (2) and Korea (5,6). An estimated addi- New York, NY tional 2000 kidney transplants could be performed annually kFounder of the National Kidney Registry if a similar program were implemented in the United States *Corresponding author: Jeffrey L.Veale, (7,8).
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