No. You must have a suitable donor. Most transplant centers will not treat you if you are older than 55 years, one center (Seattle) will accept patients up to the age of 65 years and another (M.D. Anderson) will not use transplantation as first treatment for patients older than 45 years. The chemo and radiation therapy required to destroy your marrow, prior to transplant of healthy marrow, and the drugs used to combat GVHD (graft vs host disease) places unusual stress on heart, lungs and liver.

The identities of both the recipient and the donor family are confidential. The LifeSource coordinator sends a letter to the donor family informing them about the organ recipients such as their age and sex, and how their health has improved. Some donor families and recipients correspond anonymously. On occasion, when both sides wish to correspond directly or meet, LifeSource will help facilitate the communication or meeting.

You are not responsible for finding your own donor. If you need an unrelated donor or cord blood transplant, your primary doctor will refer you to an NMDP transplant center. Your transplant center will work with the NMDP to find a donor or cord blood unit for you. In general, we encourage patients and their immediate families to focus their energies on caring for the patient. The NMDP’s ongoing recruitment efforts add nearly 33,000 new donors to the Registry each month.

The best donors are tissue-matched close relatives (brothers, sisters, parents). About 30% of patients in the USA will have such potential donors. The next-best choice is a tissue-matched volunteer unrelated donor. Using the large international panels such donors can be found for about 30% of patients in the USA although it is more difficult to find such donors for members of certain ethnic groups. It takes several months to search for and arrange the use of a volunteer unrelated donor.

In 1954, a kidney was transplanted form a healthy 23-year-old identical twin to his brother, who had chronic kidney failure. Get the facts | Donor card | Volunteer | Stories of hope | Events calendar | Links/partners | About us | Hospitals

No. Identifying information is never exchanged between a cord blood donor and a cord blood transplant recipient.

No. Confidentiality is always maintained except in the case of living donors, where transplants are done within the same family. Recipients may write letters of gratitude, which will be passed on and are really appreciated by the donor family.

The bone marrow used for autologous transplantation must be relatively free of cancer cells. The harvested marrow is often treated before transplantation with anticancer drugs in a process known as "purging" to get rid of cancer cells. This minimizes the chance of cancer coming back due to transplanting bone marrow that contains undetected cancer cells.

No. The law protects the identity of both the donor and transplant recipient. The Donor Coordinator will be able to give the donor family information on the progress of patients who received the donated organs and tissue and arrange exchange of anonymous correspondence between the parties but they cannot give out the names or any identifying details.

After your primary doctor refers you to an NMDP transplant center, your transplant center will work with the NMDP to find a donor or cord blood unit for you. Your transplant center will request more tests to see if a potential donor or cord blood unit is a suitable match. Sometimes more testing shows that potential donors or cord blood units do not match you at all the details or markers your center requires. Your transplant center will also look at other information.

Donors are people who have suffered some sort of accident and all efforts to save their lives have failed. They have been determined to be brain dead and are maintained on life support to control breathing and other body functions. Donors are carefully tested to rule out any infections that could potentially spread to the person who receives organs from them. The organs are also carefully screened to assure they function perfectly and are free from injury.

The first successful living donor transplant was performed between 23-year-old identical twins in 1954. Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Mass., transplanted a healthy kidney from Ronald Herrick into his twin brother, Richard, who had chronic kidney failure. He went on to live an active, normal life. He died eight years later from causes unrelated to the transplant.

Anyone from birth to age 75 can become an organ or tissue donor. This is just a general age guideline for becoming a donor, however. Physicians will be asked to determine the possibility of donation at the appropriate time.

Donors are relatives or close friends with a significant emotional tie to the recipient. They must have a compatible blood type and body size, as determined by the recipient's height and weight. In addition, donors must be between the ages of 18 and 60. They must also test negative for active or chronic hepatitis B and C and can have no serious medical conditions such as diabetes, cancer or heart disease.

There is a possibility that the donor cornea will be rejected or that infection could set in. It is therefore very important to follow–up regularly with the eye surgeon. Many of these problems can be treated successfully if seen early enough.

The donor has a 0.5% risk of mortality assuming that they do not have any major medical issues. The recipient's risk would be better appreciated after the evaluation. Overall, the immediate preoperative risk in a routine patient is 10%. The long term survival is dependent on the underlying liver condition, the age, and the recovery. The overall median 5 year survival is 75%. There is NO long term risk to the donor and they do NOT need to be on life long medications.

He concluded that "the graft survival rate is similar to that of parental-donor kidneys. This high rate of survival is attributed to the fact that the kidneys were uniformly healthy."(N Engl J Med

Patients are listed as status 1, status 7, or are given a MELD score. The MELD (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) system uses a combination formula from laboratory tests to determine liver transplant candidates' short-term risk of dying without a liver transplant. Please see www.unos.org and search on "MELD" for more information. Status 1 patients are the most acutely ill of all patients on the waiting list.

Patients are listed as either status 1 or status 2 on the waiting list. Status 1A patients are critically-ill patients in the ICU on IV medications to support heart function and are given priority when a donor heart becomes available. Status 1A patients also can be on other forms of life support, such as, ventilators (breathing machines), balloon pumps or mechanical heart assist devices.

Hair transplantation is a process where donor hair from the back and sides of the scalp is surgically removed and transplanted to the thinning areas of the scalp. The primary reason that so many individuals don't take action to do something about their hair loss is the fear that doing something may be worse than just being bald. There are an estimated 40 million men, and 20 million women with hair loss in the United States alone.

Following an autologous stem cell transplant, most patients are back to work and feeling their old self again after 8-12 weeks. At times energy may still be low, appetite may vary, and emotionally patients may feel up and down. Following an allogeneic stem cell transplant, most patients recover slowly. The mind tends to recover more rapidly than the body, and patients often become impatient with their progress.

While you are waiting for your organ transplant, you will be provided with a pager or cell phone so the transplant center can contact you at any time to tell you an organ is available. Always keep your pager with you. You may also wish to give the transplant center several numbers where you can be reached and the name and number of a few people who will always know how to reach you. Arrange for someone to go with you to the transplant center when you have the organ transplant.

Bridge to transplant is when a TAH or a VAD is used as temporary cardiac support until a donor heart becomes available for the patient.

Loyola University Medical Center there are several transplant doctors. One of these physicians along with a team of doctors, bone marrow coordinators, nurse practitioners, a case manager, clinical psychologist and social worker will follow you throughout the transplant. For those patients who receive bone marrow from a donor (allogeneic), more protection is required after the transplant. Allogeneic patients must take certain precautions for 100 ? 120 days after the transplant.

A transplant evaluation includes consultations, tests and X-rays ordered by the transplant program doctors for the patient and potential donors before transplantation. The Transplant Nurses are available at 1-866-421-5663, will provide them with a transplant evaluation referral and ensure a timely coordination of referrals.

Hospitals that do marrow or cord blood transplants are called transplant centers. Many transplant centers that do unrelated donor transplants work with the NMDP. You can find a lot of information about NMDP transplant centers in Choosing a Transplant Center: A Patient's Guide.

It is important to let your family know of your wishes as they will be asked for consent if the appropriate conditions occur for donation of your organs and tissues for transplant. If you reside in Oregon or Washington, you are acceptable for BioGift’s full body donation program regardless of what was recovered for transplant. If you reside outside of Oregon or Washington, we cannot accept donors who have donated for transplant with the exception of eye donation.