Living Kidney Donor
The Pediatric Kidney Transplant Program at Cincinnati Children’s works to identify kidney transplant donors.
All living donors must be healthy and have excellent kidney function.
Acceptable living donors are between 18 and 50 years of age and have blood and tissue types compatible with the recipient. Determining donor and recipient blood and tissue type is part of the pre-transplant evaluation. Donors between 51-55 years of age will be considered if they meet the donor guidelines. Their testing, medical evaluation and, if approved, donor surgery is completed at the University of Cincinnati.
If a potential donor's blood type does not match the recipient's blood type, donation / transplantation may still be possible through a paired donation program. This program is not offered at Cincinnati Children’s.
Most often the living donor is a close relative of the recipient, such as a parent, sibling, aunt, uncle or grandparent. Sometimes, unrelated living donors with ties to the recipient, such as an adoptive parent, step-parent or a family friend, could be matching donors.