Ethical guidance essential for living organ donors

The AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs examines the latest issues in living donor transplantation.

Editorial. Aug. 15, 2005.

Physicians at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago recently performed transplant surgery on their second patient who found a living donor online (www.matchingdonors.com). The Web site's aim is to link potential donors with individuals who post their profiles on the site because they need an organ transplant.

This form of solicitation, as well as billboards and other means of advertising for a living donor, is growing in popularity. That's not surprising, given that nearly 90,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant.

In the site's relatively short 12-month history, 13 living donors and patients who have been matched through the Web site have gone to surgery. These donors are members of the growing club of people willing to give up an organ or a part of one so that another person can experience a fuller life. In the past 10 years, the number of living donors has more than doubled. In 2001, 2002 and 2003, the number of living donors surpassed that of deceased donors, primarily due to kidney transplantation.

Often the donor is a family member, a friend or someone the patient knows in some way. A small but growing number are strangers. And while the process of donating organs from a deceased person is standardized and monitored, the same cannot be said for living donor transplants. Nor have there been any uniform guidelines for the way in which a living donor is to be advised and prepared for becoming a donor.