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.

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

Kidney transplants are done with the most advanced techniques. A transplant takes about three hours under general anesthetic. A small incision is made on the lower right or left hand side of the abdomen for the kidney transplant. The new kidney is attached directly to the bladder.

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.

Organ transplants have been done in the United States since the 1950s. Transplantation is continually evolving and is more successful today than ever before. Even though your body's immune system may try to reject the donor organ, advances in medicines have dramatically reduced the threat of rejection.

No. It is against the law. You cannot get any money or gifts for being an organ donor, but you should not have to pay for any of the costs.

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.

Individuals from more than 12 different states have traveled to Loyola for this life-extending oepration. Loyola has performed more than 87 percent of the lung transplants in the state of Illinois. In 2005, Loyola's transplant team performed 38 lung transplants.

No. Medical technology is not yet advanced enough to transplant the entire eye. It is simply impossible to reconnect the nerves leading from the eye to the brain. What you may have heard referred to as an "eye transplant" is probably the process of corneal transplantation, which is a valuable visionsaving procedure for some people, but unfortunately has no relationship to the problems in the eye caused by RP.

During the hair transplant procedure, grafts, or small sections of skin-bearing hair, are removed from a donor area and then redistributed to thinning or balding areas. Common donor areas include the back and sides of the scalp and even the chest. The donor area is injected with a numbing agent before the grafts are removed and redistributed. The wounds are then sutured closed, cleaned and bandaged.

The age of the donor organ. Generally, the younger the organ donor, the healthier the tissue. However, recent research is challenging this thought. It may be that some older organs work just as well as younger organs. The length of time that the donor organ is out of the donor's body. The more quickly an organ is transplanted once it is removed from the donor, the more viable the organ tissue remains. Your team will make every effort to quickly transfer the donor organ.

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.

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.

If there are no possible living donors, you will be listed for a kidney from a cadaveric donor on the national waiting list. The time required to wait for a kidney transplant can vary according to your blood type and medical background.

A person who wants to be a living donor will go through a set of tests. These tests will increase the chances of a successful match. They will also make sure that the donor will not be placed at risk. The tests include a blood draw for typing, chest x-ray and EKG (electrocardiogram). Like the recipient, the donor is also tested for any active infections. Also, a CT scan or arteriogram (an x-ray exam of the blood vessels) of the kidneys is done.

If you are wishing to be a living-related donor, please contact your relative's physician to discuss the possibility.

Because you have two kidneys and need only one, it is possible to donate a kidney while still alive. Living donors are able to resume their lifestyle shortly after surgery; most living donors return to work one week after surgery. Nevada Donor Network encourages living donation. However, NDN's task is to procure organs from deceased donors (those who have died). Living donors can also give blood, bone marrow, partial liver, and partial lungs.

Of course, it is always better to do things right the first time. Unfortunately, many individuals have had hair restorations with less than satisfactory results. NHI has been able to develop strategies that can effectively camouflage many of the mistakes caused by less sophisticated procedures. Individuals have come to NHI from all parts of the world for repairs. To determine if you are a candidate for repairs, you should arrange a free, private consultation with a NHI physician.

There are two methods used to perform a donor nephrectomy: Open also known as conventional and Laparoscopic. Both methods are safe but each have their own advantages. Open Nephrectomy has been the tried and true method used to retrieve thousands of live donor kidneys. It requires a flank incision made directly over the donated kidney. The tip of the floating rib on the affected side may also need to be removed in order to retrieve the kidney.

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.

The first heart transplant performed in Malta was done in September 1996 at St.Luke’s Hospital.

Thomas Starzl, MD, performed the first human liver transplant at the University of Colorado in 1967, but liver transplantation was not successful until the mid-1970s. Robert Gordon, MD, one of the first directors of the liver transplant program at Emory, studied with Dr. Starzl at the University of Pittsburgh. Survival rates improved in the early 1980s with the discovery of cyclosporine, a medicine that keeps the body from rejecting the new liver.

A noticeable rise in your white blood cell count is the first sign that your new stem cells have taken hold and are beginning to make new blood cells. This usually happens about three weeks after you have received your new stem cells. This is the first sign of engraftment. Your white cell count will continue to rise and we will begin to see a rise in your platelet count.