Q&A with Matthew Cooper, MD, FACS, Director, Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation, MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute
An article from the Winter 2013 issue of MyGeorgetownMD
“Because You Asked” focuses on topics suggested by our readers. If you want to suggest a topic for future issues of this newsletter, please email them to torneyd@gunet.georgetown.edu.
In 2010, MedStar Georgetown, MedStar Washington Hospital Center and Walter Reed Medical Center
together broke a world record by performing a kidney exchange involving 32 participants. One paired
exchange was between Peter Clare, a D.C. lawyer, and Susan Michelle Summers, an elementary
school librarian from Missouri. When asked if she wanted to be part of the exchange, Susan
said, “Absolutely.”
Susan donated to Peter so that another participant in the exchange could donate to Susan’s niece. In
talking about Susan, his donor, Peter said, “It’s a humbling thing to have someone do this for you.”
Susan’s niece, Heather Hall, commented: “I am so grateful to my aunt and to all the other donors out
there who are part of this.”
Why would someone become a living donor?
Kidney donors often feel that this is one of the most profound and life-changing acts they have ever performed.
More than 80,000 people live with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Their kidneys are no longer able to function properly. For these patients, the only options are hemodialysis or a kidney transplant.
Unfortunately, for many people, such as those with diabetes, dialysis is a less-than-ideal solution. These patients really need a new kidney. And today, more living donors are donating one of their kidneys. Sometimes the recipient is a loved one. In other cases, donors give to strangers so that one of their loved ones can benefit through a paired kidney exchange.
How do I know if I could be a donor?
Moved by how difficult dialysis treatments were for
his brother, Sheldon Chinnery (right) decided to
donate one of his kidneys to Rudy. Since their blood
types were incompatible, MedStar Georgetown
offered Rudy a novel therapy to cleanse his blood
of the substances that would have caused him to
reject the new kidney. Today, both are doing well
and are grateful.
Until recently, transplant centers required that donors and recipients have matching blood and tissue types. This match reduced the risk of organ rejection. We now have several desensitizing therapies which allow us to filter antibodies from the blood. The combination of medical innovations and paired kidney exchanges allows us to match more donors and recipients.
What steps do you take to ensure donor safety?
Patient safety is our number one concern.
Every potential donor undergoes a thorough screening by an interdisciplinary team of surgeons, physicians and health professionals. All interested donors receive a complete medical evaluation. We screen for conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer.
We also take the personal costs of donation into account. It is important that donors have the social support, emotional resiliency and financial resources necessary.
