Living Donor Kidney Transplant Program

The journey to become a living kidney donor begins when donors submit a completed living donor health questionnaire to determine their overall health status and candidacy to donate.

Once the form is received, the Mass General living kidney donor team will send the donor a confirmation email with further instructions.

The donor candidate will complete lab work (blood and urine, including a 24-hour urine collection) at a local lab. Once the Mass General donor team receives the results, and if they do not find any serious abnormalities, the donor candidate will be scheduled for a half-day donor evaluation visit at Mass General. This visit includes an educational session and a meeting with the donor coordinator, social worker and nephrologist (a doctor who specializes in kidney care) to discuss the candidate’s medical history and conduct a physical examination. The physical examination includes an electrocardiogram (EKG) and chest x-ray.

Based on the medical history and physical exam, other tests may be necessary and can often be scheduled close to the candidate’s home for convenience.

The donor candidate returns to Mass General for a computed tomography (CT) scan of the kidneys and blood vessels, as well as any other necessary tests. During this visit, the donor will meet with the living donor kidney surgeon to discuss their ability to donate and what to expect for the surgical procedure and hospital experience.

The donor candidate also meets with the independent donor advocate, who works with them to ensure that their best interests are represented and that decisions made are to the benefit of the donor.

Once all tests are complete, the donor’s candidacy is reviewed by the Mass General Transplant Center’s multidisciplinary kidney transplant team. If the donor is approved, donation surgery can be scheduled on a date that is convenient for both the donor and recipient, or the donor can begin the process of being entered into the paired exchange program.

Please complete our online, secure form at www.mghlivingdonors.org to begin the living donor evaluation process.

Not necessarily. Donors and recipients do not need to be related to donate a kidney.

First, you must be healthy and willing.

There are many factors that go into donor selection, but a few important criteria that we consider are:

• Age 25-75. Anyone 18-25 years old will only be considered if they have a close relationship with the recipient
• Body mass index of 35 or less
• No history of major medical conditions, such as heart, lung and liver disease
• No history of active cancer. We require cancer remission, the duration is depending on the type of cancer
• No history of uncontrolled diabetes
• If the donor candidate has high blood pressure, it must be well-controlled

There are also certain conditions in a potential donor’s personal or family history that may require further testing to determine whether someone can be a donor (for example, history of kidney stones or family history of polycystic kidney disease).

Thanks to the advances of paired exchange donation (the swap program), not being a match is no longer a major hurdle against donation.

If the donor and recipient are not compatible for any reason, the candidate can still donate their kidney on behalf of their loved one through the National Kidney Registry’s (NKR) paired exchange program. In the paired exchange, the donor would give their kidney to a compatible, unknown recipient and their loved one would receive a donated kidney from a compatible, unknown living donor as part of a swap. Our team will provide additional information about the paired exchange during the living kidney donor evaluation process.

The main thing we look at when determining if a donor can donate directly to their intended recipient is blood type. Donors with blood type O are considered the universal donors, as they can donate to a recipient with any blood type. Recipients with blood type AB are considered the universal recipients, as they can receive an organ from a donor with any blood type.

If a recipient has had a previous transplant and/or blood transfusion, they might have developed antibodies—proteins in the blood produced in response to an infection—against the transplanted organ or blood product. All recipients are tested to see if they have antibodies that could react negatively to the donated organ. If they do, the donor candidate is also tested. During the donor evaluation, we will discuss antibodies in more detail.

When determining donor/recipient compatibility, we also consider other elements such as age or size differences.

No, we keep the two teams very separate, especially in the initial stages. The transplant team does not even share the donor’s name with the recipient until near the end of the evaluation process. However, as the donor, you are welcome to share as much or as little information as you would like with your recipient.

A consent form will be signed during the evaluation process, which will outline the information that might be shared with the recipient. This primarily consists of information about the donated kidney.

Yes, we have had many donors from outside of the United States. If you are interested in learning more about international donation, please complete our secure online form.

• Read information for international kidney donor candidates (PDF)
• Leer más información para candidatos internacionales a donante de riñón (PDF)

The evaluation testing, appointments, and surgery itself are covered by the recipient’s insurance and the donor candidate does not incur evaluation, surgery, and follow-up costs. Travel and accommodation expenses, as well as costs associated with parking and preventative screening, are typically not covered; however, we can provide resources that may help with these types of extra expenses.

The National Living Donor Assistance Center's (NLDAC) mission is to reduce the financial disincentives to living organ donation. They operate a nationwide system that provides reimbursement of travel and subsistence expenses to people being evaluated for and/or undergoing living organ donation.

Donor Shield is a donor protection program run by the NKR. The Donor Shield Program Centers' offerings include reimbursement of lost wage and travel, offered to Mass General living donors who participate in an NKR swap.

Yes, most donors live perfectly normal, healthy lives after donation. Though people are born with two kidneys, only one is needed to live a healthy life particularly in carefully selected healthy persons. After donation, kidney function and blood pressure are monitored by the donor team at regular intervals for up to two years. It is important to maintain a healthy lifestyle and stay in touch with a primary care physician at least yearly thereafter.

We encourage donors to take four to eight weeks off from work. The length of time required will depend on how you feel after donation, as well as what your work entails. Any jobs requiring heavy lifting will require at least eight weeks of recovery. Some jobs that do not require strenuous effort could be resumed much earlier.