Altruistic Donor Triggered Domino‐Paired Kidney Donation for Unsuccessful Couples from the Kidney‐Exchange Program

Between January 2000 and July 2009, 132 individuals inquired about altruistic kidney donation to strangers. These donors were willing to donate to genetically and emotionally unrelated patients. Some altruistic donors wished to donate to a specific person, but most wished to donate anonymously. In domino‐paired donation, the altruistic donor donates to the recipient of an incompatible couple; the donor of that couple (domino‐donor) donates to another couple or to the waiting list. In contrast to kidney‐exchange donation where bilateral matching of couples is required, recipient and donor matching are unlinked in domino‐paired donation. This facilitates matching for unsuccessful couples from the kidney‐exchange program where blood type O prevails in recipients and is under‐represented in donors. Fifty‐one altruistic donors (39%) donated their kidney and 35 domino‐donors were involved. There were 29 domino procedures, 24 with 1 altruistic donor and 1 domino‐donor, 5 with more domino‐donors. Eighty‐six transplantations were performed. Donor and recipient blood type distribution in the couples limited allocation to blood type non‐O waiting list patients. The success rate of domino‐paired donation is dependent on the composition of the pool of incompatible pairs, but it offers opportunities for difficult to match pairs that were unsuccessful in the kidney‐exchange program.