Living Kidney Donors

Kidney Transplantation Living Donors

Living Donor Program

The Northwestern Medicine Organ Transplant Center is a leader in living donor transplant surgery. The Organ Transplant Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital is home to the largest liver and kidney transplant program in Illinois. Northwestern Memorial Hospital has one of the largest living-donor organ transplant programs in the Midwest and is top 10 in the country, having performed more than 3,000 living donor kidney transplants.

The benefits of living donor kidney transplants are well‐documented; the kidneys from living donors have longer graft survival rates, function better and have fewer complications than kidneys from deceased donors.

Those who agree to be a living donor do so as a volunteer and often find great reward in saving a life.


Who can be a living donor?

A living donor can be a blood‐related family member or a non‐blood‐related individual, such as a spouse, friend or acquaintance. You can also donate without a specific recipient in mind. This increasingly popular form of living donation is called altruistic, non‐directed organ donation, in which people donate organs as a humanitarian gesture. These organs are distributed to patients on the Northwestern Medicine list using the UNOS priority system or as part of a kidney paired donation. The goal of the Northwestern Medicine Living Donor Kidney Program is to make every effort to ensure that a transplant takes place when a medically viable living donor steps forward.

To be a living donor, you must:

  • Be over age 18
  • Be in good health, both physically and emotionally
  • Undergo a thorough evaluation process
  • Understand and accept the surgery and its risks, including medical, psychosocial and financial implications
  • Volunteer to be a transplant donor
  • Understand and accept that the outcome of the transplant might not be as expected
  • Be able tell the team clearly your reasons for donating once you are aware of all of the benefits and risks

To see if you qualify, complete the kidney donor questionnaire:

Kidney Donor Questionnaire 


What if you are not a match with the transplant recipient?

Blood type and immune incompatibility – Approximately one‐third of living donors who come forward are not matches for their intended recipient because their blood type and immune system do not match. Most blood types form antibodies against the other blood types, meaning most patients cannot get blood transfusions or organ transplants from donors with blood types different from their own.

In the past, a blood type or immune system difference would have ruled out a donor and recipient pair. Thanks to medical advances, new options are available in these cases: desensitization treatment and kidney paired donation.

  • Desensitization treatment: The Organ Transplant Center is one of only a handful of centers in the country offering desensitization treatment. This treatment allows the donor’s kidney to be placed in the intended recipient. A week or two before surgery and a week or two after the transplant, these patients undergo a variety of treatments that help make antibodies compatible. Typically, three to five treatments are required before transplant. Long‐term outcomes of kidney transplants following desensitization have been excellent and comparable to compatible donor transplants.

  • Kidney paired donation: Another option for donor and recipient pairs who aren’t compatible is kidney paired donation (KPD). KPD transplants are made possible when a kidney donor who is incompatible with the intended recipient is paired with another donor and recipient in the same situation.

    The Organ Transplant Center has performed more than 200 KPD surgeries to date, the largest of them being an eight‐way paired exchange that involved eight donors and eight recipients. KPD exchanges are becoming more common and signal a trend in the field of organ transplantation. They have the potential to dramatically increase the number of patients who receive transplants, and reduce or eliminate time spent on the waiting list.


What does the kidney transplant surgery involve?

When a living person donates a kidney, the donor and recipient surgeries are done on the same day. The operation performed to remove the healthy kidney from the donor is called a nephrectomy. These surgeries are done using a laparoscopic, or minimally invasive, approach. Patients undergoing laparoscopic kidney removal have significantly less pain and a shorter hospital stay, and return to normal life much faster than those who undergo the more traditional “open” procedure. This is still a major surgery that carries some risks.


Recovery

About 90% of all transplanted kidneys still function one year after a transplant. We will provide you with the most recent results at Northwestern Memorial Hospital as listed in the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR). You also can go to the SRTR website to view results from Northwestern Memorial Hospital and all other transplant centers in the United States. This database is updated every six months.

Explore our transplant resources. These include patient education materials, support groups and more.