Anonymous Minneapolis donor prompts chain of kidney transplants

Twin Cities Pioneer Press | Christopher Snowbeck


The University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview is announcing today a recently completed chain of kidney transplants - an unusual sequence of surgeries made possible by an individual who makes an altruistic kidney donation.

The chain included one kidney transplant recipient at Sanford USD Medical Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and two kidney recipients at hospitals in Minneapolis. Local donors and recipients were operated on at the U's Amplatz Children's Hospital as well as Fairview's university hospital, but officials are withholding some details to preserve the anonymity of the altruistic donor.

Transplant centers increasingly are resorting to kidney transplant chains because the supply of kidneys available for transplant continues to fall short of the need for donated organs. The chains help transplant centers stretch the supply of organs by giving people who are willing to donate a chance to match their kidneys with strangers in need.

Outside of transplant chains, most kidney donors and recipients know one another.

The chain of surgeries being announced today was coordinated through a Fairview program for non-directed kidney donors, in which individuals who meet certain criteria can anonymously donate a kidney to the most compatible recipient on the waiting list. In this case, the altruistic donor in Minneapolis gave a kidney in a surgery earlier this month.
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