A Step-by-Step Guide to the Living Donation Process

Offering one’s kidney to a relative or close friend can bring the “gift of life” to an individual with kidney disease, improving their quality of life and making dialysis unnecessary. Living donor transplants not only have higher success rates than cadaveric transplants, but also minimize the waiting time for transplantation.

Typically, living donors are between ages 18 and 60 and in excellent health. Once a patient is cleared for kidney transplantation, any potential donor(s) can begin the process outlined below, which begins with a call to California Pacific’s Kidney Transplant Program. If you decide to pursue living donation, it is important to remember that you can stop the process or change your mind at any time. The steps involved in becoming a living kidney donor are as follows:

1) Call Transplant Nurse Coordinator: Any potential donors should first call the transplant nurse coordinator at (415) 600-1082. The nurse will discuss their general medical history and inquire about conditions that may rule them out as a donor.

2) Undergo Screening Blood Test: Donors next have blood studies done by California Pacific’s Histocompatibility Lab to determine compatibility between the recipient and donor. (If necessary, the nurse coordinator can help make arrangements for the blood to be drawn locally). We give the result of this test to the donor confidentially.

3) Medical Work-Up: If the donor is compatible and wishes to proceed, we will schedule a full medical work-up at California Pacific with a transplant nephrologist and a psychosocial evaluation by a transplant social worker. It usually takes a half-day to complete the two interviews, have an EKG and chest x-ray done and blood drawn. You will also be given instructions to do a 24-hour urine collection to take to a local lab. Once we receive the results of all these studies and the nephrologist reviews them, we can determine if you are medically acceptable to donate.

If a potential donor lives out of state, the medical work-up may be completed by a recognized transplant center locally.

4) CT Scan: The nurse coordinator will schedule a final study-—the CT scan-—once the donor is determined to be medically acceptable. The CT scan takes about one hour and immediately after, the donor meets with our transplant surgeon to discuss the findings. If there are no abnormalities, the surgeon and donor will discuss the type of surgery-—either a laparoscopic nephrectomy or open surgery—-depending on the anatomy of the donor’s arteries.

5) Arrange Transplant Date: The final step in the living donation process is scheduling a date for the transplant surgery. This timing is based on the donor and recipient’s schedules, as well as the operating room and surgeon’s schedules. Living donors are typically hospitalized three to five days (depending on type of surgery) and can return to their normal level of activity within three to six weeks.

Important Contacts:

Transplant Nurse Coordinator: (415) 600-1082
Contact to pursue living donation and to help arrange blood tests and medical work-up.



Pictured: Gary Elkins with wife Susan, who donated her kidney to him in April 2002.