Financial help for living donors may help boost the supply for organ donation.

At some major transplant centers, the number of living organ donors now exceeds the number of deceased donors. There are around 80,000 patients in the United States awaiting transplantation and some of these people could definitely benefit from the altruism of a living donor. But how can more people be encouraged to become living donors?

A team at Washington University School of Medicine, and elsewhere, now report upon how financial barriers to becoming a living donor might be lifted. Although paying for organs remains illegal, the researchers are looking at how expenses, which may be significant, could be covered and so increase the pool of organs available for donation.

In another study, researchers are looking at the long-term health of living lung and kidney donors. It may seem surprising that this has not been done before - in fact living donors are currently only followed for a year, at most. There are important questions that need answering - such as, if you donate a kidney, what will happen if you develop kidney disease yourself? More information on the likely long-term outcome of living organ donation improves the ethics of the procedure and may encourage more people to come forward.

Source
Washington University in St Louis 14th November 2006