Why do kids need kidney transplants?
From where are kidney transplants sourced?
Kidney transplants come from two types of donors: deceased and living. Deceased donors involve people who have died due to brain death after an accident, trauma or medical condition like internal bleeding. While living donors are people who may or may not be linked biologically with the recipients. Related biological donors have blood relations with the child, such as parents or siblings, whereas, non-related biological donors do not have blood relations with the child, such as friends or relatives.
What did the study find?
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During the study, researchers found the recipient’s age one of the causes of graft rejection. There were high chances for graft failure in infants and pre-teens compared to teens during the first transplant year. However, the probabilities reduced after the first transplant year.
Researchers also noticed that grafts or transplants from deceased donors had fewer survival rates compared to grafts from living-related and unrelated donors. Further, the study spotted an increase in the number of living unrelated donors from 1.3 percent in 1987 to 31.4 percent in 2017.
“Our analysis suggests that living unrelated donor organ transplants are not inferior to deceased donor organs,” said Daniel Tancredi, the study’s co-author and professor in the Pediatrics Department at UC Davis Health Hospital. “This is especially important for children who are the most vulnerable of all and have much to benefit from receiving the best possible available donor organ.”
The study findings were published in the journal Pediatric Transplantation.
