Kidney ‘swap shop’ offers patients hope

A kidney “swap shop” could solve the dilemma of people who need a new kidney and have a willing but incompatible donor. The US scheme, which aims to go nationwide within two years, would let two transplant patients switch donors to get a better tissue match.

“Paired exchanges” are made possible by algorithms that can match thousands of donors and patients while striking a balance between finding the greatest number of pairs and forming the best matches.Over 60,000 people in the US alone are waiting for a new kidney, but donors are hard to find because both their blood type and a set of six immune-system proteins must match. Those lucky few who find a living donor are often thwarted because their kidneys don’t match.Paired exchanges have already saved lives in the US, the Netherlands and South Korea. They are still illegal in the UK because a living kidney donor must either be related or have an emotional tie to the recipient. But the law will change in 2006, and Chris Rudge, medical director at UK Transplant in Bristol, is confident that the UK will start its own programme. However, he warns that it is not a cure-all for donor shortages: “Will people be less likely to go ahead and donate a kidney if they know it is going to someone unknown?”(Source: New Scientist: March 2005.)