Moving to chains in Canada too...
Heartbeat: A chain of faith, a gift of life: Revolutionary organ exchange program can involve a domino chain of up to 10 people across Canada, and it drastically reduces wait times for transplant recipients
"Nemeth was feeling increasingly ill and didn’t have that long to wait.
"Luckily, she didn’t have to. In early 2012, at her doctor’s urging, she
joined the Living Donor Paired Exchange program.
"In the registry, donor-recipient pairs whose organs are incompatible with
each other can be matched with others in the same situation and the organs
swapped to complete transplants. There are Good Samaritans — non-directed
anonymous donors — who simply donate a kidney out of altruism also entered in
the registry. Algorithms determine matches to optimize use of rare blood and
antibody types: swaps that result can involve up to five-pair chains — up to 10
people in cities across Canada all intricately linked in a complex “domino”
transplant.
"The registry was founded as a pilot project in three provinces, including
B.C., in 2009. It has since gone national and is overseen by Canadian Blood
Services, which conducts three (formerly four) searches or “runs” a year.
"To date, there are about 145 registered pairs.
"More than 140 transplants have been performed, with the first cross-country
multi-hospital swap in June 2009. Nemeth’s own chain involved three pairs: done
at St. Paul’s and in Winnipeg.
"The program not only shortens waits and saves lives, but it also saves money:
dialysis costs $60,000 a year while a kidney transplant is around $25,000 plus
$6,000 a year for medication.
"Even before the national registry, provincial hospitals like St. Paul’s were
doing ad hoc local swaps for just these reasons.
“We were basically doing these on the back of an envelope,” Dr. Landsberg
said, adding St. Paul’s did its first regional domino transplant around
2006.
"But the national registry has been a true game-changer. Because of it, he
said, “the number of difficult to match patients who were stacked on that
wait-list and who I predicted would be on there forever have been able to get
transplants.”
"And despite the tenuous nature of the chains, so far, he said, “We’ve never
had a donor back out.”
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
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