In the United States, more than 1,200 children are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. These children only have two options: wait for a kidney from a deceased donor or find a living donor.
A child may be on the waiting list for a deceased-donor kidney for months or years. Becoming a living-kidney donor can decrease a child’s wait time. It also will allow them to avoid or stop dialysis, which takes time away from friends, school, and hobbies.
UPMC believes in the power of living donation and considers it a first-line treatment option.
The Process to Become a Pediatric Kidney Living Donor
To become a kidney donor for a child, you must undergo a series of evaluations and tests. These tests ensure you’re an appropriate match for a child on the waiting list. They will confirm that you and the child can safely undergo the procedure.
The evaluation begins with a blood test to ensure your kidney is healthy. Then, you will undergo:
- A financial clearance.
- Imaging tests.
- Psychiatric consultations.
You also need to meet some health-related requirements before you can be approved as a donor. A pediatric kidney living donor must:
- Be between the ages of 18 and 75.
- Be in good physical and mental health and have no history of:
- Cancers or other diseases that could complicate the surgery.
- Diabetes.
- Heart disease.
- HIV.
- Liver disease, including cirrhosis and hepatitis B and C.
- Be unselfishly willing to donate.
Once all testing is complete and it’s determined that you can safely undergo a living-donor transplant, you can be cleared and scheduled for surgery.
If the preoperative test results at any point appear to show risk to you or the pediatric kidney transplant recipient, the evaluation process will stop.
Recovery from Kidney Transplant Surgery
While recovery times can differ for everyone, donors typically stay in the hospital for a few days. Donating a kidney does not typically diminish the donor’s long-term quality of life. The majority of organ donors return to a full and active life within months following living-donor kidney surgery.
“Contrary to popular belief, once you donate a kidney you’re not left with 50% kidney function,” says Dr. Puneet Sood. “The other kidney takes over almost immediately, so the lowest your kidney numbers go down is about 60%-65%. And that happens day one post-donation. Over the next year, most people are at up to 75% of the original kidney function and that’s enough for a perfectly healthy life.”
Benefits and Risks of Becoming a Pediatric Kidney Donor
Often, one or both parents of a sick child volunteer to become the living donor. Other potential donors include siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, co-workers, or people unknown to the family who simply want to help.
Benefits of being a donor
- A kidney from a living donor helps to ensure that the transplanted organ will be of better quality. Therefore, it is more likely to reduce the risk of kidney transplant failure.
- As a living donor, you can save the life of a child with kidney disease.
- Because the surgery can be scheduled, a child on the waiting list can receive the transplant while they’re still relatively healthy.
- Compared to deceased-donor transplants, recipients of living-donor kidneys have better outcomes. Surgeons transplant the kidney immediately after removing it from the donor. This improves the chances that the transplanted organ will function right away. A kidney from a deceased donor may need to be stored for many hours before it can be transplanted. It may take a few days to function properly.
- Living donation improves the long-term outcomes for the child, allowing for quicker recovery time.
- Living donation increases the number of organs available for children on the waiting list.
Risks of kidney donation
With any surgical procedure, there are inherent risks that both the kidney donor and recipient must carefully consider. Our transplant physicians and coordinators will carefully outline and discuss all the potential risks of the transplant.
About Pediatric Kidney Transplantation at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
The Kidney Transplant Program at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh performed its first kidney transplant in 1964. Since then, the UPMC Children’s transplant team has performed kidney transplants on hundreds of children and teenagers. We are one of the most active pediatric kidney transplant centers in the country. Our aim is to restore health and wellness to children suffering from end-stage kidney failure.
To learn if you may qualify to be a donor for a child, visit UPMC Kidney Transplant Services.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on , and was last reviewed on .