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Domino Kidney Exchange
Tuesday, April 8
In tonight's Medical Watch ... a domino effect of giving. Four people wanted to donate their kidneys ... three to loved ones ... one to a perfect stranger. But blood types weren't cooperating. So surgeons made a few switches and in the process saved lives in a rare four way organ exchange.
A meeting and a big surprise as four kidney donors get together with four kidney recipients. It all began with the man in the Mickey Mouse shirt. Doug is a transplant nurse at Northwestern. One day he decided he wanted to help out even more and become a donor.
"A couple of times a year we'll have someone show up here and say I want to donate a kidney to anybody."
The so-called good samaritan typically gives to the person at the top of the transplant waiting list. But the staff at Northwestern knew three other people in need had donors willing to give their kidneys but they were not compatible. So in a domino exchange, Doug gave to recipient 1 ... and so on and so on until donor 3 gave to the person at the top of the list. Four lives saved beginning with an idea from one generous man.
John Friedewald, Transplant Nephrologist, Northwestern Memorial Hospital: "We were lucky and fortunate that he was a blood group "o" which is a universal donor."
But that didn't end the challenges for an eight surgery/four transplant affair that took 6 surgeons and 32 clinicians.
"Getting everyone here, everyone in the same place at the same time is a challenge. Orchestrating the operating rooms, making sure the right kidney goes to the right person at the right time. All that was tremendously challenging but very rewarding once it all happened.
And groundbreaking ... the only other domino transplant larger was at Johns Hopkins with five donors and recipients. A national effort is underway to develop a computer database to match people from all across the country and that means we will see more of these multiple surgeries in the next year.
Copyright © 2008, WGN-TV
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