Editorial: More donors the best fix for organ transplant lists

[Clark]

http://www.abqjournal.com/518210/opinion/more-donors-the-best-fix-for-organ-transplant-lists.html

Editorial: More donors the best fix for organ transplant lists

Changes to the kidney transplant waiting list promise to move up patients who have been sicker longer, as well as reduce the incidence of repeat transplants. That’s important for the health of the program, as demand continues to outstrip supply.

The new system is called longevity matching and will allocate the fittest of cadaver kidneys – based on donor age and medical history – to the 20 percent of patients expected to survive a transplant the longest. Meanwhile, the 15 percent of kidneys expected to last the shortest amount of time will be offered first to a wider area of the country under the assumption patients with a life expectancy of a few years might opt for a quicker transplant.

In the case of kidneys, around 102,000 people are on the national waiting list but fewer than 17,000 transplants are performed each year. Last year 4,485 people died waiting.

So including time spent on dialysis when calculating how long a patient has been waiting for a kidney makes sense, because the shorter the time on dialysis, the better the transplant-recovery prognosis. And the better the prognosis, the better the chance a patient won’t end up a repeat customer. Right now around 15 percent of the patients on the kidney transplant list are seeking a second procedure.

Because organs are offered locally first, it’s important for patients to get on multiple transplant center waiting lists. And because people are living longer and with more maladies like diabetes, those waiting lists are growing.

The rule changes are important to making the best possible decisions in the tough transplant realm of who gets a chance at life. Yet there is something everyone can do to make 2015 a better year for potential transplant patients: Become an organ donor at nmdonor.com and embrace the chance to give the lasting gifts of life and health.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.