Chicago-area kidney donors lead to linked transplants across country
Kidney transplants
Would you consider donating one of your kidneys to a stranger?
o Yes
o No
By Judith Graham, Tribune reporter
March 30, 2010
Five Chicago-area adults who have stepped forward to give kidneys to strangers may help save the lives of as many as two dozen people, thanks to transplant chains that will multiply the impact of the donations.
Two of the donors are young women in their early 20s, in perfect health and eager to help others. One is a dad honoring a 17-year-old daughter killed in a car accident. Another is a dental hygienist inspired by her father’s death. The fifth is a woman eager to repay a cousin’s act of kindness.
The transplant chains — a new development in the field of kidney transplantation — begin when someone like these five people offers to give a kidney to a stranger. Often, the designated recipient has a friend or relative who is willing to donate but prevented from doing so by medical circumstances.
If that friend or relative decides to give an organ to a stranger who is a better match and that second recipient has loved ones willing to repeat the favor, the chain adds more links. The goal is to allow the first generous act to help as many people as possible.
No transplant chains had originated in Illinois until Loyola University Medical Center entered the five so-called “good Samaritan” organ donors with the National Kidney Registry, an organization that helps arrange matches between potential kidney donors and recipients.
In doing so, Loyola committed to sending the organs wherever they were needed most. “That’s really unusual,” said Garet Hill, founder of the registry, which is working with about 50 hospitals across the country.
Medical centers tend to hold on to good Samaritan donors, seeking to help their own patients. That practice can make it hard to arrange timely matches, and even when they succeed, only one transplant results.
From Loyola’s perspective, chains have a much bigger impact, justifying a different approach. “We see every good Samaritan donor as a national treasure, not an institutional commodity,” said Dr. John Milner, director of Loyola’s living donor kidney transplant program.
A single large pool of donors and would-be recipients could facilitate more matches and shorten long waiting lists for organs significantly, he predicted. The National Kidney Registry has launched 17 chains resulting in six transplants apiece, on average.
Three chains will emerge from the five Chicago-area donors. The first started on March 18, when Christina Lamb, 45, of Melrose Park, gave a kidney to Robert Rylko, 21, of Rockford, who has Alport syndrome, a degenerative disorder.
Lamb wanted to give something back after her husband, Allen, received a kidney from a cousin in May 2006. “Someone close to us gave my husband the gift of life; I felt it was important to do the same,” she said.
The match was arranged after Loyola entered Lamb’s and Rylko’s information with the National Kidney Registry, along with information about Cynthia Ruiz, another donor.
Ruiz, 22, who lives in La Grange, came forward after her mom, Amy, became friends with Rylko’s dad on the Internet and told Ruiz about Rylko’s illness.
“It was really, really upsetting, and I wanted to do something,” Ruiz said.
Testing revealed that she was a “universal donor” who could be a match with any number of people. Knowing that Rylko could get a kidney from Lamb, she agreed to give to a stranger.
That made all the difference to Melissa Clynes, 19, of St. Louis, who had a heart transplant as a child and a kidney transplant at 16 after anti-rejection drugs wreaked havoc on her body. Her mother, Mary, donated that kidney; it was destroyed last year when Clynes contracted a virus.
With the teenage girl on waiting lists at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Northwestern Memorial Hospital, her mom distributed 11,000 fliers in St. Louis earlier this year asking potential donors to come forward. Eighteen people did, but none worked out.
This month, in despair, her mom Googled “how to find a live kidney quickly” and found the National Kidney Registry. Hill arranged for the family to register Clynes, and almost immediately a match with Ruiz popped up.
The young women’s operations took place Monday at Loyola. Both are reportedly doing well.
The next link in the chain is Clynes’ 23-year-old sister, Sarah, a senior at the University of Illinois at Chicago who hopes to go to nursing school next year. Sarah Clynes’ kidney is likely to go to New York, Milner said.
A second chain will start when dental hygienist Jodi Tamen, 45, donates a kidney in early April, probably to a patient at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Tamen lives in West Frankfort and works at Loyola.
Her motivation springs in part from the memory of her father, who died of a heart attack at 62. “I just feel a strong pull to do this,” she said.
The third chain begins with Tim Joos, 53, of St. Charles, who plans to donate a kidney in mid-April. Joos is honoring his daughter Samantha, who died at 17 in a car crash almost seven years ago. Samantha had signed up as an organ donor when she got her driver’s license.
Joos has spoken often to high school students about the importance of organ donation. Last year, he said, “I began to ask myself why I didn’t do this myself.” His kidney is expected to go to a hospital in Philadelphia.
So far, the National Kidney Registry has arranged 112 transplants. Another 30 donors and recipients have been tentatively matched and are awaiting final medical approval, Hill said.
No center has listed as many donors as Loyola. “I almost fell off my chair,” Hill said. “Nothing like that has happened until now.”