Paired Donor Exchange Programs

At the ATC 2010, Speakers from the Alliance for Paired Donation, and other paired exchange programs reported their experience with paired exchange for ABO incompatible and HLA incompatible donor recipient pairs.  They spoke about shipping living donor kidneys; currently there does not seem to be a increase risk for DGF or graft dysfunction up to a CIT of 15 hours.  However they only reported short term results.  All groups agree that a national level paired exchange program needs to be created and apparently UNOS is attempting to do so.  Finding a way to organize such a project and work out financial agreements and oversight will be challenging.

by
Vinay Nair