Furthermore, donations of kidneys from cadaver donors cannot keep pace with the ever-expanding number of patients waiting for a kidney. Living donors have become the source of renal transplants for 50 percent of our recipients, including donors unrelated to their recipients. Delmonico also serves as medical director of the New England Organ Bank. The donor spends four or five days in the hospital and as long as six weeks recuperating before completely resuming normal activities. In the new procedure, surgeons make four tiny incisions in the donor's abdomen and side through which a laparoscopic camera and tiny instruments are inserted to separate the kidney from its blood supply and to disconnect the ureter, which carries urine from the kidney to the bladder.
Donors can usually go home in one to two days and resume normal activites within two weeks.
Ko, a multiorgan transplant surgeon with a urology background and special training in the technique, explains that removing a kidney this way is especially challenging. The operation is technically very demanding. It has to be done perfectly so that you have a perfect organ for the recipient. The combined team performed the first MGH operation Aug. 4 and followed up with another Aug. 11. Both donors went home on the second day after surgery and experienced no problems or complications.