The majority of individuals in the United States are not eligible to donate a kidney, even if they wanted to, according to a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2014 November 11–16 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA.
There is a shortage of living kidney donors in the United States, but no one has previously examined the general population to see who would be eligible to be donors. To assess the potential US donor pool, researchers led by Anthony Bleyer, MD (Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center) looked at a representative sample of the population and determined the proportion of people who could not be donors because of underlying health conditions. They also determined the number of individuals who fell below the poverty line and therefore might not be able to donate because of financial difficulties related to being away from work during recovery.
Read the entire news release from the American Society of Nephrology.
Media Relations
Marguerite Beck: marbeck@wakehealth.edu, 336-716-2415