Transplants from living
donors increase with
new technology

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By Rosemarie Bernardo
Star-Bulletin

Organ donations in Hawaii are on the rise, thanks in part to new technology that makes it easier for living donors to offer their vital body parts, hospital officials say.

The increase locally follows the trend on the mainland, according to Donna Pacheco, heart and liver transplant coordinator of St. Francis Medical Center's Transplant Institute.

The month of April has already brought two transplants from living donors in Hawaii, and five more donations are scheduled, Pacheco said.

Those seven donations equal the total for all of last year. If that rate continues, this year stands to top the donation rate for 1999, when there were eight living donors.

In addition, so far this year, 11 transplant patients in Hawaii have received organs from patients who died. That is on par with the 33 "cadaveric" donations last year and 40 in 1999.

Dr. Whitney Limm, surgeon and medical director of the kidney transplant program, attributes the increase of living donors to technology, medication and urgency. Benefiting from this are transplant recipients, he said.

"With a living organ donor, they can get a transplant quicker and get off dialysis sooner," said Limm.

Kidney transplants from living organ donors have a 95-percent success rate after one year of the procedure. Cadaveric donors have an 87-percent success rate, Limm added.

Laparoscopic nephrectomy, the latest technique of removing a kidney with a laparoscopic camera, minimizes complications and recovery time for the donor.

Typically, a donor will recover in three days instead of five, said Limm. The donor is able to return to full function within three to four weeks, he added.

A second important factor is the availability of powerful immuno-suppression medications. One of them, Simulect, blocks cells that would normally attack the organ and cause rejection, he said.

Joyce Nekoba, transplant coordinator at St. Francis Medical Center, praised the work of Cathy Baily, evaluation coordinator, who mainly concentrates on transplant referrals.

Spouses, childhood friends and members of the same church community are offering to donate their organs.

Currently, there are 291 donors in Hawaii on the transplant waiting list.

Pacheco added: "We have a huge amount of kidney disease in Hawaii. If people realize that someone they love needs an organ, not necessarily a family member, I think more people will try to donate."

Nationally, the number of living organ donors has increased 16 percent from last year, with more than 5,500 people giving away a kidney or a piece of their liver. Tommy Thompson, secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, said, "We're encouraged by the progress that has been made in the last year, but there's still a very long way to go."

In recognition of National Organ and Tissue Awareness Week from April 16 to 22, officials from the Organ Donor Center in Honolulu are visiting hospitals to increase public awareness of being a donor.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.