The National Kidney Registry announced the successful completion of its 3,000th paired exchange transplant, which took place today at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. This milestone represents the most transplants in the world facilitated by a single Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) registry.
Garet Hil, Founder and CEO of the National Kidney Registry and a kidney donor himself, commented, “As our volume continues to grow, we are seeing typical wait times fall below two months while our ability to match the most highly sensitized patients is increasing. We are currently facilitating over 600 transplants annually and have only 17 unmatched highly sensitized patients (cPRA > 99%) waiting more than 12 months, which demonstrates the power of a large KPD program to match the most sensitized patients without requiring desensitization. The avoidance of desensitization is driving better outcomes for sensitized patients who participate in NKR swaps.”
The National Kidney Registry facilitated its first paired exchange transplant in 2008 and is projected to facilitate over 600 paired exchange transplants in 2018. The NKR has accounted for all of the KPD growth in the United States since 2007.
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