'Organ Shortage' Solution: 'Old Kidneys' may Work

When someone has a kidney failure which is 85-90% of the kidney function is gone and the kidneys don't work well enough to keep someone alive, the person needs a treatment. The two main treatments for the patient of kidney failure are dialysis or transplant. Dialysis is a treatment that does some of the things done by healthy kidneys. While kidney transplant is an operation (surgery) in which a person receives a new kidney.

According to Kidney Link, there are three types of kidney donors, include deceased (cadaveric donor) which is a kidney from a person who has just died and the family has given permission for the kidneys to be donated for transplant, living related donor is a kidney from a blood relative such as a parent, brother or sister, and living unrelated donor. which the kidney comes from someone not related to the person who needs a transplant such as a spouse or a friend.

The National Kidney Foundation has an organ donation and statistic, includes:

1. There are currently 121,678 people waiting for lifesaving organ transplants in the U.S. Of these, 100,791 await kidney transplants. (as of 1/11/16)
2. The median wait time for an individual's first kidney transplant is 3.6 years and can vary depending on health, compatibility, and availability of organs.
3. In 2014, 17,107 kidney transplants took place in the US. Of these, 11,570 came from deceased donors and 5,537 came from living donors.

On average:

1. Over 3,000 new patients are added to the kidney waiting list each month.
2. 13 people die each day while waiting for a life-saving kidney transplant.
3. Every 14 minutes someone is added to the kidney transplant list.
4. In 2014, 4,761 patients died while waiting for a kidney transplant. Another, 3,668 people became too sick to receive a kidney transplant.

Based on the statistics above, it is showed that almost 5000 people died while waiting for a kidney transplant, not only for kidney, other organs as well. So, what is the problem? In 2015, Live Science has found out simply that the donors are not meet the demand. In May 2015, the U.S. Senate introduced the Organ Donation Awareness and Promotion Act of 2015, and though it's yet to be voted on, it would fund efforts to further promote organ donation and raise awareness of the ongoing shortage.

The study in The Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology says that transplant centers come up short more often than not when treating patients in need of a kidney, as there is a shortage of donors. Yet kidneys donated by people 65 or older can still function for many years after transplantation.The results suggest that a new source of quality kidneys could be available to patients in need of life-saving transplants.

Dr. Luigi Biancone, the lead author of the study and associate professor of nephrology at the University of Torino in Italy, said "Kidneys from an old donor may be favorably used, particularly in an age-matched patient," 

Dr. David Klasse spoke, "Age is not the sole criteria by which the outcomes of an organ or the quality of an organ should be judged,", He added, "To exclude an organ just based on age is probably not appropriate." Klasse is the chief medical officer of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which operates the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network -- the nation's transplant system -- under a contract with the federal government. Although Klasse was not involved in the new study. He said the new results are "consistent with previous studies suggesting the outcomes for older donors can be quite good."