Organ Transplants: What You Need to Know

Hearing from your doctor that you need a transplant is overwhelming and difficult news. Also overwhelming can be your sudden need for information on organ transplants. This article will get you started on what you need to know.

Organ transplantation -- the surgical removal of a healthy organ from one person and then putting it into another person whose organ has failed or was injured -- is often lifesaving and gives the recipient a wonderful new lease on life.

But organ transplants are also major surgery and carry potential risks and drawbacks, such as the chance of organ rejection. That's precisely why you and your loved ones need to gather as much information on organ transplants as possible, and as soon as possible.

Organ Transplants: An Information Overview

In the United States, six types of organ transplants are now performed, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a nonprofit organization in Richmond Va., which administers the country's only Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which includes the organ transplant waiting list.

Organ transplants include kidney, pancreas, liver, heart, lung, and intestine; sometimes "double" transplants are done, such as kidney/pancreas or heart/lung.

In 2007 there were 28,356 transplants done in the U.S., according to UNOS, a slight decrease over the total for 2006, when there were 29,935. To date, most donor organs have come from deceased donors. In 2007, for instance, 22,047 organs came from deceased donors, while 6,309 organs were from living donors.

Most common, typically, are kidney transplants; least common single-organ transplants are the intestines.

Depending on the organ needed, organs are matched using several characteristics, including blood type and size of the organ needed. Also taken into account is how long someone has been on the waiting list and the distance between the donor and the potential recipient.