Transplant Manitoba celebrates success of LDPE and the gift of giving

Transplant Manitoba Gift of Life issued a news release on March 7, celebrating their recent participation in Living Donor Paired Exchanges. The living donations that took place in February were a result of two living donor chains that required 18 operations, with participants from five provinces and about 65 hours of surgery.

The good news: as a result of the donor exchanges, nine people—three of whom were from Manitoba— who used to spend hours on dialysis to manage their renal disease are now recuperating at home with a whole new lease on life.

What is more, this story is being reported all across Canada and was made possible thanks to the Living Donor Paired Exchange Registry developed by Canadian Blood Services in partnership with the Canadian transplant community. To date, more than 120 Canadians have had a successful transplant thanks to the work of the Registry.

According to Dr. Peter Nickerson, Executive Medical Director, Organs and Tissues, Canadian Blood Services, “much of the success of the Living Donor Paired Exchange (LDPE) program can be attributed to the participation of all provinces, but also the selflessness of non-directed anonymous donors (NDADs) who have made domino exchanges possible which account for close to 70 per cent of the transplants to date.”

Currently, there are more than 4,000 Canadians waiting for a life-saving organ donation. “Every day and a half one of them dies,” says Peter. “Not only do transplants improve and save lives, estimates suggest the net cost benefit of a kidney transplant over dialysis is about $50,000 per patient per year.” ”