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Doctors Transplant Same Kidney Twice In Two Weeks

kkleiner writes "Twenty-seven-year-old Ray Fearing suffered from focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a common type of kidney disease, and needed a new kidney. His 24-year-old sister, Cera Fearing, wanted to give him hers. The transplanted kidney immediately began to grow diseased, so doctors removed it. But then something happened that, according to the doctor who performed the procedure, had never been done before. The unhealthy kidney was removed from Ray, and replanted into another patient, and the kidney became healthy and has remained in this second patient ever since."

82 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Obviously by vencs · · Score: 2

    its Ray "Fearing" Kidney.

  2. Get me a hammer! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    We'll make it fit SOMEPLACE!

    Yeah.. not the attitude i want a surgeon to have... What happens when the person who ended up with it gets a new disease...

    1. Re:Get me a hammer! by wisnoskij · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know that there is a always far more demand then availability.
      No matter what happens it probably saved a life.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    2. Re:Get me a hammer! by sco08y · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You know that there is a always far more demand then availability.
      No matter what happens it probably saved a life.

      There's an adequate supply, it's just illegal to sell organs.

    3. Re:Get me a hammer! by Morty · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the assumption was that the brother's disease, which was genetic, was causing problems with the new kidney. But because $recipient2 did not have that disease, if transplanted to $recipient2's body, the kidney would recover and work correctly. A genetic disease not present in the kidney should not follow the kidney. The actual results would vindicate that theory.

    4. Re:Get me a hammer! by clang_jangle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You are correct -- the value of this is the discovery that when an organ is diseased it may be a symptom of a greater problem. It actually seems pretty obvious when you think about it.

      --
      Caveat Utilitor
    5. Re:Get me a hammer! by wisnoskij · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think that is the fear at all, I think the fear is that people will have their organs stolen while they are alive.
      People get killed for their couple hundred dollar iPads, if a healthy person has dozens of saleable organs then they could be worth 10s of thousands of dollars.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    6. Re:Get me a hammer! by definate · · Score: 1

      But they are currently worth more than 10s of thousands of dollars, because people can't sell legitimately.

      Making it legal, would mean the price would drop, and the very crime would likely be harder to pull off, and attract less of a reward.

      Since this crime is rare now, I'd be surprised if it didn't become even rarer, unless somehow everybody's ethics go out the window, and kill a person somehow becomes moral.

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    7. Re:Get me a hammer! by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      Yes but unlike stealing a iPad you cannot unload a bag full of human organs at every street corner.
      Selling/buying them is illegal so there are very few buyers. Make it legal, and the demand and number of places you could offload goes through the roof.
      Price probably would drop but a persona life is not worth that much, a few hundred dollars would make it common crime, a few thousand an epidemic.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    8. Re:Get me a hammer! by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 3, Funny

      Just don't break any traffic laws and you'll be fine.

      --

      ---
      ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
    9. Re:Get me a hammer! by sco08y · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because that libertarian attitude every one should be able to enter any contract he wishes without restriction doesn't account for the realities of power play in this world.

      The realities of power are that really rich people, right now, can fly to countries to get organs from desperate people. So all we're really doing is exporting the problem.

      The reality of medicine is that being put on a donor waiting list is a death sentence for the "99%".

      And the reality of organ transplants is that most people suffer organ failure due to poor health, poor diet and smoking / drug abuse. You probably see more poor and middling people, per capita, needing organ transplants because wealthy people take better care of their bodies.

      Only desperate people would sell their organs for money.

      So it's better that they simply remain desperate? They don't seem to think so. Do they get a say in the matter? Freedom of choice? My body, not the government's? Does that only apply to abortion?

      Allowing people to sell organs would give very rich people with organ failure an incentive to make the life of potential donors hell.

      Sure, that would make perfect sense if rich people were all part of some vast conspiracy. In reality, any sane person, rich or poor, has every incentive to avoid hugely invasive surgery, and as much as people don't want to be donors, they want to be recipients even less.

    10. Re:Get me a hammer! by sco08y · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Selling/buying them is illegal so there are very few buyers. Make it legal, and the demand and number of places you could offload goes through the roof.

      Um, how? Is there anything that could possibly be easier to trace than human organs? I mean, they're already stamped, in every single cell, with DNA. How in God's name could you fence stolen organs?

      And if there are doctors willing to do it without running the checks, what's stopping them from doing it now?

    11. Re:Get me a hammer! by twotailakitsune · · Score: 1

      IF only jobs was still alive. He would know how to do it.

    12. Re:Get me a hammer! by SydShamino · · Score: 1

      Because that libertarian attitude every one should be able to enter any contract he wishes without restriction doesn't account for the realities of power play in this world.

      The realities of power are that really rich people, right now, can fly to countries to get organs from desperate people. So all we're really doing is exporting the problem.

      We're minimizing the number of poor people in our country who are dependent upon the benevolent due to renal failure. That's worth it right there, end of argument.

      Having only one kidney is neither healthy nor safe in the long term.

      --
      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
    13. Re:Get me a hammer! by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      There would be more donations if it was legalised so a bigger crowd to hide in, you would not have to hide the money part just make up someone or add a organ or two onto a normal donor.

      And no it would not be easy to trace. No government has very many peoples blood on file, no file no trace, and every match is non unique anyways.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    14. Re:Get me a hammer! by definate · · Score: 1

      Right now if you wanted to make money off of killing someone and harvesting their organs, you'd also have to "make up someone or add a organ or two onto a normal donor" the only difference I can see is hiding the money, however you'd have to do that in either system, as it's going to look pretty weird if the money is going to a different person.

      Everything you're describing can happen in the current system.

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    15. Re:Get me a hammer! by chooks · · Score: 2

      I think the assumption was that the brother's disease, which was genetic, was causing problems with the new kidney.

      Not quite: FTFA:

      Researchers have theorized that it may be caused by a factor circulating in the bloodstream.

      From something a little less...mainstream:

      Idiopathic or primary FSGS is postulated to result from a plasma factor that increases glomerular permeability. This hypothesis is supported by the observation that FSGS may recur in a renal allograft. However, the presence of such a permeability factor has not been confirmed although some of its characteristics have been described. Another possibility to explain the pathogenesis of FSGS is lack of an inhibitor to the permeability factor. Hence, what causes FSGS and why it may recur in a transplanted kidney is yet unknown.

      (Szczepiorkowski ZM, Winters JL, Bandarenko N, et al. Guidelines on the use of therapeutic apheresis in clinical practice--evidence-based approach from the Apheresis Applications Committee of the American Society for Apheresis. Journal of clinical apheresis. 2010;25(3):83-177.)

      Usually FSGS is thought to be acquired (e.g. HIV or heroin use) rather than genetic. Of course, underlying genetics or haplotypes may play a role, but I too lazy to look that up :).

      --
      -- The Genesis project? What's that?
    16. Re:Get me a hammer! by stuckinarut · · Score: 2

      On QI: H Series - Episode 4 they calculated the approximate total cost for a human body to be about £500,000 including the organs, meat (£1.32/Kg), leather, carbon (coal), bone meal (fertiliser) as well as the various metals the body contains; QIXL Series H S08E04 Humans

    17. Re:Get me a hammer! by BeaverCleaver · · Score: 2

      I though that the whole "wake up in a bathtub full of ice after being the victim of illegal organ theft" thing was pretty much just a cool internet rumour, for several reasons:

      1. transplants have to be matched. Not just blood type but also MHC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_complex, which narrows the compatibility even more.

      2. Organs don't last long outside the body. The recipient has to be right there waiting for the organ, it can't just be tossed in the fridge waiting for a compatible customer to show up.

      3. Anti-rejection drugs don't just grow on trees. Securing a LIFETIME supply of these things can't be easy if you're not on record as having had a transplant... And surely they're not in as much demand as other prescription drugs.

      In summary, there are practical and biological reasons that there really isn't a massive black market for organs.

      I may well be wrong, can anybody correct me?

    18. Re:Get me a hammer! by Robert+Zenz · · Score: 1

      The easy road would be to make being a Organ-Donor opt-out, not opt-in.

    19. Re:Get me a hammer! by sFurbo · · Score: 1

      With regards to number 3., the way to do it would be to fake the organ donor, so it seems you have gotten a legitimate organ. Your points 1. and 2. makes it necessary to have quite a large infrastructure in order to pull it off. Probably having 1000's of people waiting to deliver a organ. Outside of state prison systems, I don't see a way to do this. It seems* that China is doing it, so in order to get a foothold of the market, you would have to compete with an established player for whom the main cost is sunk (China have another need to have thousands of people locked up), which would be extraordinarily hard.

      *This may just be hearsay.

    20. Re:Get me a hammer! by necro81 · · Score: 1

      People get killed for their couple hundred dollar iPads, if a healthy person has dozens of saleable organs then they could be worth 10s of thousands of dollars

      There are important differences between iPads and organs: While you can fence an iPad most anywhere (pawn shop, streetcorner, ebay, craigslist, etc.), the channels for selling an organ are pretty restrictive in industrialized countries. You can't sell coolers of organs out the back of a truck somewhere, because what the hell is the buyer going to do with it? A patient can't walk into a hospital, cooler in hand, and say "Hey, I found myself a kidney, can someone here install it?" Hospitals won't touch that stuff, partly because it's illegal, and partly because there's no way to know if the organ is still viable, if it's a match for the patient, if the patient can survive the surgery, or if the surgery itself would be successful.

      And it's not like there's a profusion of black-market hospitals where you can go with your purchased organs to have them transplanted. Organ transplantation is still hard enough, and the necessary ancillary care complicated enough, that it pretty much can only be done (again, in industrialized countries) in well staffed hospitals. It's not like the patch up guys patching up gunshot wounds for gansters: an organ transplant (at least, one you want to succeed) requires a clean operating room, the skilled surgeon, a few nurses, equipment costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, sterilization facilities, an anesthesiologist and all that goes with it, a recovery bed, 24-7 nursing staff, etc.

      While iPads have serial numbers (and MAC addresses, etc.), they are more or less carbon-copy interchangeable. This is not the case for organs. Due to blood types and a dozen other factors, a kidney taken from some random person may be valuable to one patient, or utterly worthless to another. Less than worthless, actually, since a non-matched organ can cause fatal rejection. So in order to have a decent business model for stolen organs, you need a way to type match not only your stock, but also your buyers, and then to put them together in a timely fashion. Which brings us to another key difference between iPads and organs: shelf life. The viability of an organ outside the body is measured in hours, and so you would need to harvest and offload the goods very quickly. A stolen iPad can sit on the shelf for weeks or months, or be transported across the country, not so for organs.

      So while a guy walking down the streets theoretically has a stolen organ value of a tens of thousands of dollars, the reality is that it's so damned difficult to realize any of that money without a substantial national or regional infrastructure that mirrors that of UNOS and hospitals. It's the sort of thing that organized crime could have pulled off in its heyday if it were made up of MDs.

    21. Re:Get me a hammer! by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      But if you make it legal there very well might be a international infrastructural for finding potential matches for people in need, contacting those people and asking if they want to sell.
      A criminal might gain access to this DB and somehow falsify records, drug until compliment, or threaten his family.

      That is the point of this fear, the legality creates an international business out of it, the criminals piggyback on this to find buyers and hide the source of the organs.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    22. Re:Get me a hammer! by WillDraven · · Score: 1

      Because that libertarian attitude every one should be able to enter any contract he wishes without restriction doesn't account for the realities of power play in this world. Only desperate people would sell their organs for money. Very ill rich people know that, so offering money to potential donors would not likely get them very far. However, they could give money to the potential donor's employer so the potential donor gets fired is much easier, then bribe all possible employers so they don't hire that potential donor. Afterwards, they can offer money to the banks so the potential donor doesn't get any credit. Why do all that

      Indeed, why do all that when all you need to do is plant some drugs on his person or property and make an anonymous tip? Or child porn? Or terrorist training manuals?

      --
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    23. Re:Get me a hammer! by TheLink · · Score: 1

      Yeah some time back I had a crazy bad idea for a law.

      Basically a motorcyclist that was provably not wearing a helmet and ended up in a fatal accident is automatically regarded as having consented to donating his/her organs.

      I suppose to make it less bad we could add the clause, "unless said person has already explicitly and officially specified nonconsent to organ donation". But who'd want to live in a society with such ruthless laws?

      --
    24. Re:Get me a hammer! by metrometro · · Score: 1

      War story from a reporter in South Africa involved chasing down an organ smuggling ring. Had to call his editor and ask if it would be ok to actually take possession of a cooler full of kidneys for a while, grab some photos, then give it back. Editor (correctly) told him he was out of his mind, file the story and call the cops.

      Thing is, I don't think the thieves were very smart, and nothing ever got implanted. If there was a white-market for organs though, well then, who's really gonna check once it's onboard?

    25. Re:Get me a hammer! by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      The demand for kidneys in extremely inelastic. It consists of people whose lives are endangered by the failing of their natural kidneys. It's not as if someone thinks "My kidneys might fail some day, I'll stock up now and buy 4 or 5 spares." Kidneys don't keep, except in their proper container (i.e. someone's body). The demand for kidneys (except among cannibals) is not going to significantly change if it becomes legal to buy and sell them.

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    26. Re:Get me a hammer! by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Compared to the number of people able and willing to steal an iPad, the number of people able and willing to do the technical part of involuntary organ removal is very small, even if you don't care whether the "donor" lives. In addition, the surgeon, who could make just as much money doing legal transplants, has nothing to gain and risks many years of prison by being the key player in organ theft.

      --
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    27. Re:Get me a hammer! by BeaverCleaver · · Score: 1

      Yeah I suppose a giant, state-sponsored player could pull it off. This supports my idea that waking up in a bath tub of ice is still just an internet rumour though. As usual, travellers abroad should be more concerned about their camera and cash. I have certainly heard of tourists being drugged to steal those.

  3. uHHH.. by EchoRomeo · · Score: 1

    Doctor: We don't have any kidney's available but we have this diseased and rejected kidney in the fridge. Intrested? Patient: Umm... F*** it. Dieing anyway right? Throw it in!

    1. Re:uHHH.. by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Funny

      Doctor: We don't have any kidney's available but we have this diseased and rejected kidney in the fridge. Intrested?

      If you're going to receive a transplant, it's best to get an organ with broad experience.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    2. Re:uHHH.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually, when you're on the kidney transplant list (at least in the USA) you have the choice between optimal and suboptimal kidneys. In other words, if you're really hating dialysis, you can get whatever the first kidney is that comes along that will match your blood group, even though it might be from someone old and with a potential disease. If you want to hold out for a good one, you can.

  4. Re:CNN deleted their comments? by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 1

    They seem to have cleaned out the comment though. I remember looking at the story 2 days ago and seeing over 400 comments -- virtually all about how hot Ms. Fearing is. Now there are only 96. Still all about how hot Ms. Fearing is.

    The Internet: Vindicating misanthropy since 1993.

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
  5. Interesting by arse+maker · · Score: 1

    The article doesn't give much detail.
    I assume this is part of a clinical trial being done. Otherwise it would seem odd logically or ethically to do this.
    You can live without a kidney(ies) but a transplant is a major surgery with real risks. Judging by the talk about the theory of the blood born cause it must have been a clinical trial.

    If someone here is a surgeon maybe they could explain the ethics involved when approving this type of novel operation?

    1. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually the first linked TFA gives just the right amount of detail:

      "To me giving it to someone else seemed like the right thing to do," said Ray Fearing, who undergoes dialysis several times a week and is not currently a candidate for another kidney. "This was a gift to me, and I wanted to pass along the gift. I didn't realize what a big thing it was at the time."

    2. Re:Interesting by cpu6502 · · Score: 2

      >>>clinical trial

      Or Dr. House breaking the rules again! (Damn him... if we wasn't so good, we'd prosecute him in court.) ;-)

      I'm surprised the kidney got better. I guess the disease is located in the man's body, not in the kidney (which recovered once given a healthy environment). I feel sorry for the guy as he'll probably die soon, before he even made 30.

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    3. Re:Interesting by u38cg · · Score: 1

      Actually, you've got it exactly backwards. Doctors are entirely free to do things in everyday practice using their own judgement that, were they involved in a trial, they would not be permitted to do.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
  6. this is a good strategy for all transplants by bitt3n · · Score: 4, Funny

    get one patient to reject the kidney, and then, while the it's still depressed, another patient gets the kidney on the rebound.

  7. Most Importantly by Thinine · · Score: 5, Informative

    His sister is hot.

    1. Re:Most Importantly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I bet the click through rate on the article just quadrupled thanks to this 4 word post.

    2. Re:Most Importantly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      And thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, she's keeping her weight down as well.

    3. Re:Most Importantly by Slicebo · · Score: 1

      His sister is hot.

      His sister is SMOKIN' hot.
      Fixed that for you.

    4. Re:Most Importantly by RivenAleem · · Score: 1

      Old man on the left: It's only fair I reciprocate!

  8. Kidneys = Ram by Master+Moose · · Score: 1

    I had some Ram that did that once. Placed it in one PC and I had an unstable system constantly crashing.

    take it out and put it in another box. Both machines running perfectly.

    --
    . . .gone when the morning comes
    1. Re:Kidneys = Ram by EnsilZah · · Score: 2

      Well, sheesh, I thought it was commons knowledge that putting farm animals in your computer case would cause some instability, especially ones with horns.

    2. Re:Kidneys = Ram by Master+Moose · · Score: 1

      I think it was the wool. It created too much fuzzy logic within the chips.

      --
      . . .gone when the morning comes
  9. Monty Python by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    The Meaning of Life Part V: Live Organ Donor Transpants

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  10. Actually RTFA this one guys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The girl that donated the kidney is SMOKING hot.

  11. Re:Kidney-Sharing thanks to Obamacare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Obama?

    Plah-ease! It's obviously Bush's fault!

  12. Silly Doctors by SeaFox · · Score: 1

    It's obvious that Ray is cursed.

  13. It's that old saying by cvtan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Kidney once, shame on you. Kidney twice, shame on me.

    --
    Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
  14. Re:CNN deleted their comments? by tibit · · Score: 1

    Pray tell, if you imply that such comments are misanthropic, why do would think that? How is it hating the humankind to comment like that? It may be objectification the woman, but hey, objectively, she is one nice looking object. Perhaps I just missed your cleverly disguised point.

    --
    A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  15. Re:CNN deleted their comments? by tibit · · Score: 1

    What did they expect?!

    --
    A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  16. But under the older care HE will be black listed by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    But under the older care HE will be black listed with a pre existing condition but it's not that bad jail / prison care does not have pre existing conditions

  17. Change the rules by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I still don't understand why not everybody is considered as donor.

    In Luxembourg, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Czechoslovakia and Hungary (Wikipedia page only lists European countries) you have to actively exclude yourself.

    1. Re:Change the rules by twotailakitsune · · Score: 1

      Do they force all healthy 21+ to "donate" a kidney? Obama, you may take our freedom by the TSA, but you won't take our Kidneys!!!

    2. Re:Change the rules by Stormtrooper42 · · Score: 1

      No, they don't force healthy people to give their kidneys.
      They take your organs when you die. (When you die in specific circumstances. They don't want damaged organs, of course.)

  18. Ports by lannocc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just goes to show that human-parts package management should be treated like a BSD Ports or Gentoo Portage installation; you need to take the entire system into consideration when looking at changes.

  19. Kidney Nazi Suffers No Complaints by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 1

    You no like the kidney??
    No kidney for you!

  20. Re:Kidney-Sharing thanks to Obamacare by NemosomeN · · Score: 1

    These days it's hard to tell the difference between real idiocy and humor via absurdity. If you walk like a duck and talk like a duck, most non-ducks will assume you are a duck.

    --
    I hate grammar Nazi's.
  21. Why wasn't it returned? by countach · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why didn't the girl get the kidney back? I can understand her willing to give it up for her brother, but not for some random person.

    1. Re:Why wasn't it returned? by mpoulton · · Score: 1

      Why didn't the girl get the kidney back? I can understand her willing to give it up for her brother, but not for some random person.

      Because she's fine with only one kidney, and the risks of reinstalling the other one are very substantial for almost no benefit.

      --
      I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
    2. Re:Why wasn't it returned? by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 4, Informative

      They removed the kidney from her brother because they believed it was already broken. So, they instead transplanted it to the desperate 67 year old guy who prefered getting a diseased kidney, hoping it could extend his life for a little bit, instead of passing it to a perfecly healthy person, which might put her life in jeopardy.

      Or so I believe.

      --
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    3. Re:Why wasn't it returned? by EdwinFreed · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Substantial risk understates the situation if anything. The fact is removing a kidney is a pretty big deal whereas putting one into someone is a lot simpler. This is because they put transplanted kidneys into the lower abdomen inside the muscle layer but outside the peritoneal wall. (The old failed or failing kidneys are only removed if absolutely necessary.) Removing a kidney, OTOH, means going through the abdomen to the other side. Even though it's done laparoscopically, it's still fairly traumatic, to the point where altruistic donors (that's what they are called) have a significantly worse time of it than the recipient in the first couple of weeks post-transplant. Because of this, there is no way in hell any remotely competent surgeon would agree to put back a kidney they are sure she doesn't need so soon after the original procedure. (Donors undergo extensive testing before such procedures. And it's actually surgeons plural, since reattaching blood vessels and hooking up ureters are actually different specialties.)

      For that matter, they would not have removed the transplanted kidney from the original recipient were it not for the small matter that according to the article, it was killing him. (When a transplanted kidney fails and another transplant is done they don't remove it unless absolutely necessary, with the result that someone can end up with four or more kidneys.) So they were going to end up with a kidney and no place to put it. Rather than toss it in the garbage, my guess is they started calling people at the top of the list who were type compatible until they found one willing to give it a go.

      I'll also point out that one of the side benefits of being a donor is that in the unlikely event that your remaining kidney fails, you automatically go to the top of the transplant list. And in most cases 100% of the donor's costs are paid for.

    4. Re:Why wasn't it returned? by metrometro · · Score: 2

      Fortunately for humanity, lots of people are willing to donate a kidney to save a stranger's life.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/health/lives-forever-linked-through-kidney-transplant-chain-124.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1

  22. His poor sister must be pissed. by roman_mir · · Score: 1

    His 24-year-old sister, Cera Fearing, wanted to give him hers.

    - she wanted to give him hers, well, if they could transplant it into another patient, then she should be suing the shit out of them for not transplanting it BACK INTO HER.

    1. Re:His poor sister must be pissed. by u38cg · · Score: 1

      Alternatively, perhaps she bothered to learn a tiny little bit about the implications of kidney transplantation beforehand and happens to know why that doesn't make sense.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
    2. Re:His poor sister must be pissed. by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      Bull, she just wasn't told what was going to happen to her kidney and that it could be implanted back into her. She should sue, in fact I am going to email her the suggestion.

  23. Discount by Dan+East · · Score: 1

    Did the 2nd recipient get it at a discount?

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Discount by erice · · Score: 1

      Did the 2nd recipient get it at a discount?

      In a sense, yes. Organs are always in short supply and priority is given to the young and healthy (aside from needing an organ, that is). The second recipient was a 67 year old diabetic. Through normal channels, he probably could not get a kidney at any price.

    2. Re:Discount by VickiM · · Score: 1

      A 67 year old man would probably be on Medicare. So it was more likely double-billed than discounted.

    3. Re:Discount by twotailakitsune · · Score: 2

      Medicare. Double-billed at 1/5 of the cost to do the work still has the Doctors losing money. .... And people ask me why Hospitals near large elderly housing are closing down.

  24. Only the Best by virgnarus · · Score: 1

    If I was going to get a kidney, it'd better be from myself.

  25. Confirmed. by mrquagmire · · Score: 1
    --
    giggity
  26. 4 day old by AlienIntelligence · · Score: 1

    4 day old receives transplant and new life on Slashdot.

    -AI

    --
    For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
  27. That's not how it works by EdwinFreed · · Score: 1

    That may be true for other organs, but not kidneys. And this is for good reason: With, say, a heart or lung or liver, you either get one or you die in fairly short order. But we have an acceptable substitute for a kidney: Dialysis. So, issues of compatibility and availability aside, kidneys are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis,

    What this translates to in practice is that if you're blood type O, expect a *long* wait. This is mostly because type Os can only get a type O kidney, meaning about 60% of the kidneys that show up aren't going to be compatible. (This actually isn't true - there's a therapy that allows transplants against type - but since it requires extensive preparation in advance it isn't really practical for cadaveric transplants.) It, OTOH, you're type AB, your wait time is likely to be much less, mostly because any kidney that shows up will work for you.

  28. Medicare age exceptions by EdwinFreed · · Score: 2

    Actually, end stage renal disease (ESRD) including both dialysis and transplants, is covered by Medicare regardless of age. The only other condition that enjoys this status is amyotrophic lateral schlerosis (ALS). I have no idea why ALS is handled this way, especially since there are several similar motor neurone diseases that aren't covered, but in the case of ESRD, it's because when dialysis was first developed it was extremely expensive and insurance refused to cover it. The result was few dialysis machines were built and the costs remained very high. ESRD was and is very common, so laws were passed to extend medicare to cover it. (And the costs did drop, but it's still expensive.) And when transplants became available, the coverage was extended again to cover that.

    There is, however, a little gotcha in all this. The drugs needed to prevent rejection of a transplant are also expensive. And once you have a transplant, you don't have ESRD any more, so your Medicare coverage ends. This was addressed by extending the coverage for 18 months, which I guess is how long transplants used to last. But these days the average is more like 9 years. So what happens is someone gets a transplant that's paid for by Medicare, their meds are paid for for 18 months, then the coverage stops, they can't afford the meds and the transplant stops working. So they go back into ESRD and need dialysis, at which point they're covered again.

    This is absolutely insane no matter how you look at it, since the meds are typically around $10K/year whereas dialysis is closer to $50K/year. So not only do you waste a precious organ, it ends up costing more.

    The good news is that one of the provision of the AHA that goes into effect in 2014 is to extend medicare to cover the meds indefinitely.

  29. House by X10 · · Score: 1

    sounds like Dr House was there.

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    no, I don't have a sig
  30. oh someone else got it by JTsyo · · Score: 1

    Thought they returned it to the sister.

  31. Re:Kidney-Sharing thanks to Obamacare by jaymemaurice · · Score: 1

    I am sad to see this thread did not end up with an Obama ate a Kidney comment...

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    120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
  32. Desperate... by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    Wow, considering this was the "first time" for this to happen, the patient must have been very desperate.

    "We have a kidney available, however it is 3rd hand, and currently diseased, and no one has ever transplanted a diseased kidney and have it get better on its own. Still want it? Yes? Really?"

  33. Correction by EdwinFreed · · Score: 1

    Think about it: Cadaveric transplants often come from people who were in an accident. The time available to match the organ in such cases is not going to significantly different than if you grabbed someone off the street intending to steal their organs.

    When there's plenty of time, as in the case of altruistic donations, yes, full match testing is performed. But when there's not, it isn't, and it usually works.

    In any case, these days not only are transplants done with little or no MHC match (mine was only 2 out of 6), but they are even done against blood type. The process for that is fairly involved, making it impractical to do if you're going to transplant a stolen organ. That said, the odds are over 40% that a person grabbed at random in the US is going to be type O, and type O organs are blood type compatible with everyone.