Pigs could end the transplant waiting list

"I accepted the donor organ and brought the recipient into the hospital. He was in his 60s with diabetes and high blood pressure, and had been on dialysis for a few years. As we talked about the transplant, he told me some version of the story I had heard so many times - that dialysis kept him alive, but it was no way to live. He was very excited about getting this transplant, and make no mistake, I was honored to play a role."

A call at 2 a.m. brings a kidney offer from a 68-year-old donor with diabetes and high blood pressure who died of a stroke. Kidney function is normal, but biopsy shows scarring and inflammation. The decision weighs the long transplant waiting list and the likelihood that many patients will never receive a healthier organ. The risk is that the kidney may last only a few years, after which the recipient may return to dialysis for the rest of life. The potential benefit is respite from dialysis, time with family, travel, and normal meals during graft function. The recipient, in his 60s with diabetes and high blood pressure, is excited and views dialysis as keeping him alive but not as living.

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