8. Compatibility Issues

We conduct crossmatching, tissue-matching, and blood-type tests to establish whether the donor and the recipient are compatible. Higher donor-recipient compatibility leads to better transplant success rates. If the evaluation committee establishes that the two make a poor match, or are of incompatible blood types, they may suggest you participate in the Kidney Paired Donation Program.

Timeline

Kidney Paired Donation Program

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) offers a program that allows an incompatible donor-recipient pair to perform a “swap” with another donor-recipient pair.

Step 1

Your kidney is incompatible with the intended recipient due to mismatching blood type or tissue type.

Step 2

A member of the Lahey team will enter your information and your intended recipient's into the nationwide database, where we'll find another incompatible pair that matches your tissue and blood type specifications.

Step 3

Both recipients receive compatible kidneys from the other person's donor.

In order to participate in this program, all parties must have been approved in their pre-transplant evaluations, and they all have to agree to the exchange.

There are no fees to join. Typically, these exchanges will take place in the same transplant center; they may take place in separate hospitals if necessary, but this isn't preferred since the kidneys may begin deteriorating during transportation.