"I'm not the big hero people
make me out to be. I went through a minimal amount of
discomfort. It was not a huge sacrifice," said the anonymous
donor. "If I had the chance to do it again, I would."
Charity takes many forms —
donating to the local food bank or pledging money to
the Red Cross, for example. But in British Columbia,
some individuals have proven they're capable of taking
altruism to a level far beyond that of dropping a few
loonies in the tsunami relief jar. Although completely
healthy, they've donated kidneys to perfect strangers
whom they'll never meet.
In November, the BC Transplant
Society (BCTS) announced that it had performed the first
two living anonymous donor (LAD) kidney transplants
in Canada, as part of a pilot study to confirm the safety
and viability of such procedures.
The pilot is the culmination of
four years of comprehensive research into the practical
and ethical implications of this controversial procedure,
which until now has been performed, to the BCTS's knowledge,
solely in the US.
|
DONORS WANTED:
DEAD OR ALIVE CLICK
HERE (PDF
FORMAT)
|
THEY'D
HAVE TO BE NUTS...
Dr David Landsberg, medical director of transplants
at St Paul's Hospital in Vancouver and medical director
for the BCTS from 1994 until 2003, has been with the
project since its inception. He explains that, initially,
he was sceptical.
"I can honestly say that I was
one of the people who said, 'Of course we can't do this,'"
he admits. "I felt that when we look at donors, they
have to be mentally stable, and anyone who would do
this, by definition, would not be mentally stable."
But when the television program
60 Minutes aired a story in 1999 about an American
woman who had anonymously donated one of her kidneys,
the BCTS decided to look into the matter more closely.
What they discovered about those willing to be anonymous
donors, says Dr Landsberg, was surprising.
"We found that a significant number
of these people were actually very psychologically intact,
and very altruistic," he says. "In fact, they were pretty
reasonable people, from a psychological point of view."
DONOR
EFFECTS MINIMAL
The results of the donor screening were summed up by
Dr Landsberg and his colleagues in a paper entitled
"The Living Anonymous Kidney Donor: Lunatic or Saint?",
published in the February 2003 issue of the American
Journal of Transplantation.
Out of 43 initial potential candidates
who had contacted the BCTS of their own volition, 15
were still willing to donate a kidney following an intense
assessment of psychological health. Of these, seven
were deemed medically unsuitable. For the remaining
eight potential donors ok'd for the procedure, Dr Landsberg
says the medical risks will be few, and that "the long-term
consequences of only having one kidney are, for a healthy
person, minimal."
The kidney recipients themselves
are far from nonchalant about the life-changing nature
of the anonymous donors' gestures. "I have been on dialysis
and waiting for a transplant for seven years," said
one. "Being off dialysis is huge. I'm feeling better,
and this will allow me to return to work."
MORE
LADs, PLEASE
Dr Landsberg and his colleagues are planning to facilitate
a further eight LAD transplants as part of their pilot
study. They will be conducting a follow-up study of
the living anonymous donors taking part, in order to
determine whether they suffer any psychological ramifications.
If all goes well, Dr Landsberg and his team may well
have opened up one solution to tackling the drastic
organ shortage across the country.
Living donor transplants have been
steadily rising in Canada, while cadaveric donations
have plateaued (see the graph below). Add longer lifespans
to the mix and the BCTS's timing for pushing the transplant
envelope couldn't be better.
As of December 31, there were 3,914
Canadians waiting for organ transplants — 73% of
them were waiting for kidneys, according to the Canadian
Institute for Health Information (CIHI). In 2003, 82
people died while waiting for a kidney.
|
